


Armed

by VividVert



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: Bad Spelling & Grammar, Body Horror, Cultists, Eldritch Entities, Fantasy Alchemy, Gen, January Tumblr Self-Insert Month 2017, Monsters, POV First Person, Self-Insert, Transformation, Word count challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-14 03:20:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 31
Words: 36,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9157927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VividVert/pseuds/VividVert
Summary: Wake up as something quite inhuman in another world and attempt to make a profit; probably not my brightest idea.





	1. 1.1 - Touchy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for anyone looking for something more serious, this is more or less a word vomit styled break from my serious fanfics.  
> My goal is to get at least 500 words a day with a primary goal of 1k a day.  
> Hopefully things do not go too crazy.
> 
> Expect grammar and spelling errors as I will not be editing until the month is over if at all as I'd rather be working on my other fanfics.

Alright. Too many arms, not enough eyes, and far too large if the trees were any indication. Several bodies surrounded me, dressed like cultist and looking like they had fallen asleep on the ground. Yet not a single one was breathing and the lack of a reasonable cause of death for so many was disturbing. I would have probably been focusing on it more if it wasn't for the new monstrous body I was sporting.  
  
Moving only made things worse as it turned out I didn't have any legs along with eyes, just a long scaleless tail that branched off into three branches like trees. Six arms in anatomically impossible places and without the extra shoulder blades that would make moving them possible and black clawed. They still moved and muscles that were just as impossible moved with them. My blank face had only a mouth full of too sharp teeth yet I could still see, smell, and hear as if I did have the necessary parts.  
  
Dead cultist plus monster body usually means something got a little fucked up and left me without the means of getting an answer. No books or notes that I could find with my oversized fingers amongst the various candles and boxes of pleasant smelling ash.  
  
Though one had a familiar emblem on them; a hammer upon a spiked circle. The Twilight's Hammer clan, doom calling cultists of Warcraft who worshiped the Old Gods.  
  
The Old Gods were eldritch beings, kind of like the form I was in now.  
  
Well shit.  
  
On one hand this could be all a weird dream. On the other hand, I have always had facial blindness and thus cannot see faces in my dreams. The cultists have very details, still dead faces.  
  
So, uh, was I supposed be their new pet monster? Well, let's not do any of that. Instead, I would very much like to have legs again. The prehensile snake tree tail things wasn't going to work out and crawling everywhere like a six armed crab sounded terrible inconvenient. At least I still had fingers.  
  
If this was Azeroth, then being a minion of the Old Gods was not going to end well in my favor. They tended to die quite a bit.  
  
Do I have eldritch powers as part of the monster power deal? Old Gods and their minions had powers over void, vague corruption abilities, and just about all other forms evil magic.  
  
I want to be human, and I focused on the feeling of having legs, eyes, ears, and nose. My body folded in on itself and I was still so wrong.  
  
I was humanoid sized now, but still too tall at seven or eight feet with an uncanny thin skeletal frame. Still had six arms and while I now had legs, the toes were webbed together and had gained black claws. I had a face, but had ken doll anatomy.  
  
Worse was the feeling; 'folded' was the closest word I could think of with how wrong being humanoid with a near clawing desire to return to my 'true' form. Stealth was more important, maybe when I had a sufficiently safe place I would stretch out.  
  
Clothes were easily salvageable from the various cultists, even if they didn't fit in the slighted. Thankfully the lack of explainable death also meant moderately clean clothes! An off white tunic, black cotton pants that were too wide around the waist and too short, and featureless black cloak to hide my arms. The tunic had to have holes ripped in for the extra arms and thankfully the claws made simple work of the fabric.  
  
None of the shoes would have fit with the toes and claws, but maybe I could master the shape shifting before I met anyone who would notice.  
  
Now for goals. Did I need shelter, warmth, food, or water? Apparently I didn't have the digestive track for such, but the shark tooth mouth said otherwise. Should I ask someone for help and hope they don't turn on me? Maybe figuring out what powers came with the new body would be a more important goal. For now, I should just get the hell away from the site. Someone must have seen the armed colossus towering over the trees and my lack of charisma would probably get me in trouble.  
  
Where was I anyways? Azeroth was fairly big and had many forests. Ascending a tree was easy with my arms too strong for how bony they were. The moment my eyes glanced over the tree lines I spotted a landmark that I should have noticed a long time ago. The Twilight Citadel was silhouetted in a grey sky in the distance, overlooking the corrupted once entirely green landscape of the Twilight Highlands.  
  
Well shoot, no time like the present to get the hell out of dodge as the place had to be crawling with more cultist who most definitely could have seen me. That is if the Old Gods' presence couldn't already sense me and were tracking me.  
  
Running wasn't really an option. My legs were all to awkward, especially compared to the probably supernaturally dexterous arms. That and the wholly unnaturally sensation of being humanoid again made every step uncomfortable as is and worse when strained. Crawling might have actually been faster then the moderate walking pace I was moving.  
  
Still, I saw no one since the cultist. I didn't see any animals either. Or hear any of them. Perhaps skies were not meant to be that grey. There wasn't a cloud in sight, yet the whole view of the sky was solid dark grey.  
  
Maybe I wasn't in as much trouble as I thought. The different planes of Azeroth were a thing, though which of the many possible realms I could be didn't exactly fill me with confidence. Now swirling sky or spirit healers so I'll assume I'm not in the Shadowlands where players go when they die.  
  
Well, if I could change my shape, maybe I could shift into different planes. Reality: the material plane. The sky gained color and everything became all too focus. The sounds too loud, the smells too pungent, and my skin crawled with every sensation.  
  
Back into the grey sky realm and everything settle down back to reasonable levels. The sensations weren't completely unbearable, but why deal with such when I could just hang out in grey world and not have to deal with people either? Sure if the cultists got here in the first place then more could follow, but avoiding who I could seemed like the better idea.  
  
For now at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 1: 1105  
> Total: 1105


	2. 1.2 Keep this in Mind

The Old Gods and their minions were creations and the main arms of the Void; the Void being the local 'pure evil' force of Azeroth. The most powerful forces of the Void, if not embodiments of the Void itself, would be the Void Gods of whom Warcraft fans haven't learned much about.

The Old Gods had many minions themselves that ran their nightmarish Black Empire before the Titans imprisoned the Gods after the war. The Void forces were aiming to end everything for some reason and the Titans were reasonably against that. How powerful the Old Gods were kept changing with some accounts saying they were threats to the Titans and other accounts claiming the Titans could wipe them out easily.

Two of the notable forces of the Old Gods were the n'qari or 'the faceless ones' that looked like Cthulhu knock offs and the insectoid aqir. Of course they also had cultist of various races and a modern variant was the Twilight's Hammer who were doomsayers who were actively trying to bring the end of everything themselves.

Said cultists were known for summoning the former creatures in order to bring that end a little closer. How that dragged my mind from my world to Azeroth, I have no idea. Probably should have stolen one of the boxes as the ash might have been important.

Could I be bound and controlled? Sure there were tons of stories about eldritch monsters tearing through their foolish summoners, but I had no idea where on the monster hierarchy I was. My true form was positively huge and that was usually a sign of power in the Warcraft universe; usually a symptom of being a boss.

Not that my form looked like something out of Warcraft, most of the local aberrations were more sea creature like. I looked like I crawled right out of Bloodborne in both of my forms. The long ragged white hair would fit right in until I found a place to clean up. Long shower if possible, though unlikely, but I would settle for a long warm bath.

Scissors for the hair would be nice, but I had no idea how much of the mane was shape shifted or not. Would it all grow back if I shifted again?

Fitting clothes would also be nice in both forms. Colossal hoodie for a colossal monster and wouldn't that be a fortune in gold. Not sure what to do for the tentacle tail, maybe a set of robes or a giant sock. Perhaps a pile of giant blankets and never leave whatever hovel I make for myself.

Not that I wanted to stay a monster or in Azeroth, just that I was at a loss for options. The Black Empire had temples and things, though most of them were either fleshy caverns or temple built on the back of slaves.

Something pulled at me. No more pressure than a tug of a thread, but the feeling was distinct. Where did it want want me to go? Who wanted me to go? I got a direction, but not a distance. Like hell I wanted to meet the whoever, but if the pull was actually a tracker of some sort than I wanted to know.

Mentally I poked the connection- Where am I?!

Dragged into the material plane, my form forcefully unfolded, and in a panic I crushed an ogre Twilight enforcer under my palm. My mind screamed along with my body and the surrounding cultists either fled or collapsed on the spot. The ones that weren't effect were the group of five strangely dressed persons who could only be adventurers rushing into the ritual area.

I wanted out, wanted to go back to the grey realm were things were less intense. No matter how much I tried, the realm refused to let go. Something was holding me in place and my eyeless face scanned the area. A rough circular stone alter, more candles and boxes of soothing ash, and a thing upon the alter. The area around the alter was greying with something causing the grass to slowly shrivel.

The adventurers were fighting the cultists and winning, I swatted away anything that came towards me, and the cultists were rapturously chanting when they weren't fleeing from me. When I blatantly focused on one adventurer they tossed a smoke flare of sorts in my direction. The scent had my panic receding for a moment and my arms retracted for a moment.

The thing on the alter, a bone idol that was an posed version of me. Six arms: two clutching its head, two folding hands over its chest, and two holding a shallow bowl dripping with blood. The whole idol was maybe a foot tall and constricted, possibly carves from one large bone. I could crush it between my fingers if I could just-

Another cultist did something; the feeling of my skin trying to rip itself out of place and I retaliated with a clawed swipe. Blood splattered the area and over my fingers- another scream rippled from me, scattering the cultists again.

The adventurer caught my eye and once again another smoke flare thrown towards me. Focus on the idol, the mimicry has to be what is holding me in the material realm. My bid to grab the piece was halted by a shadowy barrier that flared into view around the alter at my touch. Crushing the barrier proved futile as it might as well have been made of metal. Bashing the barrier had the same effect, though the landscape rumbled under the force of my monstrous fist.

Another smoke flare, though this time my body sagged under the tranquilizing effects. What is that, fantasy chloroform? Azeroth brand weed? Cat nip for aberrations? Regardless, fairly inconvenient right now. I get the adventurers have no idea what the hell I am, but I don't want to be around any more then they do.

" _Let me go,_ " I said and my voice was just as warped as my body. A hushed yet all to loud whisper that hissed in the wind. " _I don't want to be here!_ "

An adventurer in bright armor, a paladin, charged towards the barrier with her hammer ready to strike. I withdrew my hand to let her slam down on the barrier, shattering the shadows under the might of the Holy Light. With a slightly hesitant swing, she crushed the idol.

" _Thank you._ " I said as the ties faded and I sunk back into the grey realm.

The world became less overbearing and I let out a breath as the people and corpses faded from view. No more responding to strange ethereal pulls. I folded myself small again only to groan in misery. My salvaged clothes must have been shredded when I was unfolded as I was naked again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 2: 1139  
> Total: 2244


	3. 1.3 Should Keep it in Mind as Well

I moved away from the ritual site before purposely unfolding and stretching out. Taking deep breaths and extending everything, even the branches of the tail tentacles. When I was calm enough I refolded and began walking again. Clearly the area was still the Twilight Highlands, though the citadel towering even further away. Fairly certain I was now on the far east end of the zone close to the ocean shore.

The shore was easy to find and easier to get to. The water was as still and grey as the sky and without a single wave. Visually it might as well have been glass and lacked any sea life. What a weird realm. Why was only the sky and water grey? Given that the material realm was so overbearing I had to wonder if the problem was the ream or if the problem was me.

The grey world was still and devoid of sentient life while the material realm felt like too much, but I was experiencing the world through a monsters senses and not a human set.

I wonder what the muted realm would do to someone less oversensitive?

Walking to the water itself made things stranger. The water resisted my prodding and even held me afloat for a second before I began sinking. If I kept moving then I could walk on the stilled water.

Thus began my walk down over the ocean. Another tug pulled at me, a mere annoyance that I refused to enable a second time. A few more pulls while I kept walking with the shore as my guideline.

Movement in the water drew my eye; far in the distance until the still water something surged. A bear sized mass of writhing tentacles and eyes breached the surface and looked to me. " **Goal.** " it said loudly with many voices overlapping. Startled enough to stop moving for a moment, I began to sink before pacing enough to keep afloat.

"What?" I said back with a confused frown. My voice was apparently more human while folded, but still had a hissed quality to it.

The creature jolted and it's arms vaguely furled. " **Goal?** "

Well, wasn't that just the most adorable aberration against the Holy Light you had ever seen? Apparently the thing was just as confused as I. "Er. I don't have one?"

The entity rumbled in further confusion and wiggled vaguely upset. " **Goal?!** " it demanded this time.

"I'm going to find clothes and a place to sleep!" I said while back peddling away from the no longer vaguely cute thing. Then tentacles wrapped around me and dragged me under the water with an frustrated rumble. Good news: turns out I don't need to breath or I need so little air that I could hold my breath for absurd amounts of time. Clearly I could breath as my lungs or what I thought were my lungs were functioning earlier.

In only a few minutes we arrived at the creature's target: a sunken ship. The light was only barely filtering down illuminated the abandoned naval vehicle. My limbs were freed and blinked at the strange monster before crawling my way into a medium sized hole breaching the side of the ship. Dragging myself alongside the ship walls were much easier than attempting to swim through the stubborn water.

Given how close to the Twilight Highlands the wreckage was and how intact the ship was, the sinking must had been recent. Multiple sealed crates sat in the cargo hold, stacked upon each other. I grabbed a crate and was surprised when the tentacle entity grabbed another.

Two crates in my arms with one pair of arms free, tentacle guy had one, and then it grabbed my waist and dragged me off again. Deeper into the ocean where the light got thinner and into a cave set inside the wall of a crevice.

Comically flung into the air pocket of the cave, I lost grip on the crates last second and landed on my face, and all three of the crates were just as cartoonishly up thrown afterwards.

The cave was mostly a rock of some type and the only light was from glowing mushrooms that covered the walls. From what I could see, the entity had left, but my view into the dark water was limited.

Well. Getting out wasn't going to be fun. It did find me supplies and shelter. Why? I have no idea. Probably not a good guy monster since it was the first alive creature I had since in the muted realm and it helped the blatantly monstrous looking me. Did not seem that smart either.

Oh well, time to crack open those crates. Hopefully nothing was too waterlogged.

The first crate had tins of varying sizes of military rations. They had labels on them that were too dark to read from the center of the room away from the mushroom lights. The whole crate was nothing but tin cans with pull tabs.

The second crate had very generic 'one size fits all' clothing. Loose with drawstrings that could be adjusted to any size. Any normal humanoid size. Most of the Alliance military was humans, night elves, draenei, and worgen. The only ones of immediately different sizes would be the dwarves and the gnomes so for the most part the military would benefit from focusing on 'vaguely human'. Also had socks, gloves, and underwear of different sizes.

The last crate was of field ready packs. About six thick hide packs that were bigger on the inside of just camping/traveling gear. A canteen, simple mess kit (tiny pot with lid and collapsing handle, metal cup, and metal spork), bedroll, a camping knife, a tinderbox, a compass, a coil of rope, and a first aid kit.

I quickly set to emptying two packs and instead filling one with the tin cans and the other with sets of clothing. Of course I cut more holes in the shirts first. Perhaps I would be better off buying tabards as shirts when I get the chance.

The bags would be awkward to carry, but the supplies were too useful to leave behind. I rolled out one of the bedrolls, lied down, and stared at the ceiling of the cavern. I didn't feel tired, or hungry for all that it matters, but today had been weird and uncomfortable on too many levels.

Maybe tomorrow would be better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 3: 1068  
> Total: 3312
> 
> Next Time: Technological Idiosyncrasies and Kitchen Sinks


	4. 1.4 Embrace the Shadows

Technology was a bit schizophrenic; most people lived a generic medieval fantasy lifestyle and then you had steampunk helicopters and robots with artificial intelligences. The lack of ubiquity could be due to limited supplies or maybe the technology was unreliable, but there were cans.

Tin cans were invented in the early 1800s. While the AI robots and the vehicles may seem more impressive, they could also be explained as magitech as things like arcane sentinels and magic propelled carpets also existed. Tin cans and the process of canning food inside them had to be a mechanized process, specially since they were the modern tab kind instead of the quaint key kind. 

The likely producers were gnomes as technology was something they liked for some reason, though an engineer of any race was capable. With the limited number of engineers, it would probably be simple to find the original can producers.

Which meant selling the tins I had salvaged were likely easily identifiable as property of the Alliance military. Selling off the cans would probably bring questions I didn't want to answer. The other gear would likely follow under the same issue.

So no easy money from salvage unless I want to work with someone less morally sound and even then I'd probably get cheated or put into some other risky situation. 

Money made the world go round, I didn't have a penny to my name, and I didn't have any applicable skills to the Azeroth world outside of violent murder. Sure, the cultists were blatantly evil and trying to kill absolutely everything, but I was still a murderer. 

I didn't want to even hurt anyone and was unnerved at how quickly I turned to aggressive when panicked. Was that a new instinct of the body? Possibly. It was just as possible that it was my normal human response that I had never encountered before as I had never been put in such a situation. 

Maybe I could become a resource gatherer of sorts. The muted realm meant I could avoid most of the threats and could pick up herbs and ores if I learned. Somehow.

How the hell do the muted plane and the material plane interact? The crates were on an Alliance ship that most likely was not in the muted plane and still I picked them up. Would people have seen three crates mysteriously floating on their own? If someone was looking at would they see just floating clothes and bags?

...If I could see the clothes in the crate, but not people, why couldn't I see the adventurer's armor? 

Questions for later; for now, how was I going to reach the surface? Swimming in the muted realm was way to difficult and the material realm had man eating sea life. Sharks were violent on Azeroth, gargantuan hostile sea snakes and whales that could eat those sharks whole were about, and lets not forget about the reptilian humanoid naga. 

I may or may not have a fear of the ocean and deep water in general. Even in video games being in the water had me panicking. At least on land the enemies could come from only so many directions, the sea had no such mercy as well as limiting my movement. 

Would aberration magic help in anyway? The realm shifting meant magic of some sort, but I hadn't testing other planes and I wasn't too eager to try. Most of the realms were patrolled by other powerful entities such as dragons or demons or the plane itself was hostile. 

At least the muted realm seemed safe, confused monster not withstanding; it didn't hurt me after all. 

Perhaps I could use void magic like a shadow priest or a warlock does? I didn't know much about either as my mains were a holy/disc priest and an outlaw rogue. Though I did stop playing discipline after Legion started. Before Legion the spec was one of the best dungeon party healers and the changes were unappealing to me. Rest in Peace Shield spamming!

Since I was usually the pocket healer to a tank, rarely did I get the chance to play DPS. I knew the overview of the spec, but how much of that applied in universe? 

Which abilities would help in this situation? Dispersion was the only one that came to mind and while that breaks any movement impairing effects there was no guarantee that would work on the still water. 

I didn't have to worry too much about my bags getting wet. Anything that would be damaged by the swim was sealed in tins and the rest could dry out at some point. 

So, dispersion; turning into a formless shadow. One pack on my back and the other two in my arms, I waded into the dark pool. The struggle got more difficult the higher the water until I paused when it got to my waist. Disperse into a shadow, energy without physical borders. 

The sudden loss of body was somehow less weird than gaining extra limbs. Out of the cave and up as high as I could go int he few seconds I had was enough for me to see the surface with the grey light of the sky filtering down. The cooldown in game was a few minutes as most and mister monsters wild ride had proved I could hold my breath long enough.

Manual ascension didn't work out so well with my attempts at something between a butterfly stroke and a breaststroke. Progress was made, but not enough to justify the amount of effort when another dispersion would do better. 

The seconds passed ever so calmly. Still water, still skies, not not still tentacled creatures in the distance. As in multiple of them. 

I very carefully stopped moving, hoping they wouldn't notice me. Well, if they hadn't noticed my attempts at swimming then they probably weren't going to notice if I was still. The three I saw were moving far in the distance and how they moved made it clear that they weren't swimming. Their limbs occasionally wriggled, but never in an ordered motion that would lead to propulsion. 

So if whatever they were doing wasn't physical, then it was probably magic. Using my own understudied magic, I dispersed up to the surface. Slowly, I crawled up and began walked. 

Back to the shore, far away from the creatures with a half formed plan of becoming a resource supplier. Who knows, maybe I'll get my own shop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 4: 1082  
> Total: 4394
> 
> Next Time: The fine art of making a fool of oneself.


	5. 1.5 Murderhobos, UNITE!

Finding a twilight jasmine was easy; the bright purple flower was littered everywhere the grass was still green. When I plucked the steam, the flower immediately shriveled leaving only a handful of petals behind. Apparently there was a wrong way to pick flowers. The petals were still useful and about ten petals were equivalent to one intact herb if I remember correctly. 

The inside of the packs were surprisingly not wet. Probably magic again. I was still soaked, but changing clothes meant either leaving the wet clothes behind or putting them with the dry clothes and getting them wet. The petals went into a pack's pocket and more followed. Really I needed jars for storage, but that was still a later purchase; better clothes and shelter first.

I'd have to get used to the material realm if I was going to buy anything at all. Taking cover beside a larger tree, I shifted. As everything became more, I tried to take a fortifying breath only for the action to make things worse; the smells of nature were thick and even the sensation of air through my lungs were uncomfortable.

I had to get used to the material realm. If I could hold my breath underwater then I could hold my breath on land. After a few minutes, I decided I was too used to breathing when I should that unnecessarily holding my breath was pointless. 

Someone spoke and I raised my arms in defense. To my left was a dwarven woman in black robes and shrouded in shadows. We stared at each other for a moment. Hesitantly, I stiffly waved an arm. "Hello?" I asked. Be friendly! Hopefully an Alliance shadow priest and not a Twilight Cultist. 

"Now aren't you a strange looking fellow!" she said, fairly jovially. I relaxed my arms, but prepared to shift back into the muted plane at any moment. 

The woman had brown hair in a tight bun with pale skin and purple tinted eyes. She had a strange feeling about her, like an aura I couldn't quite put my finger on. Was that a monster sense I hadn't noticed before? The only time I had met actual normal people was during that frenzy I was too panicked to pay attention. 

"I had a bad run in with cultists." I said. Not a lie, but not the whole truth either. Deception by omission was still deception. "I was a normal human before." 

"Well you're still sane, so that's not too bad. Still, usually adventurers are immune to that kind of mutations or just die and revive." she explained and approached. 

"Wait, what?" Still too overwhelmed by existence. She smelled of earth and shadows. Wasn't entirely unpleasant, just would like for things to be less. She was too close, but she wasn't hostile. Still I tensed and she paused far enough away. She had a dagger and some sort black orb with a handle that were peaceful holster on her belt.

She thought for a moment and frowned. "You don't know?" she asked and I nodded. "Well that cannot be good. You're an adventurer now and all the good and ill that comes with it."

"What does that even mean?"

"Alright, didn't think I'd be caring for little adventurer today." she muttered to herself. "Here's how it works. Adventurer's can't stay dead and we revived by returning to where we were downed. Adventurers know adventurers, just a feeling we get- you know what? You look like a drowned cat, follow me."

I was too startled, but she seemed patient enough to let me think it through. Worst comes to worst, I could shift out. Or apparently revive. 

Passing through the sparse trees, I followed without a word until we came upon a campsite. Various tents of many types and colors clustered together around a large fire pit. When I wasn't zoning out due to the sounds and smells, I noticed everyone had that aura about them. The 'adventurers know adventurers' thing the lady spoke of, I suppose.

Dwarves, humans, night elves, worgen, gnomes, and draenei were milling about. Talking, trading, and a few of them fighting on the outskirts of the campsite. Many stopped to stare at me for a moment before going back to their business. "Oi, we got another newcomer!" my dwarven guide said to a male gnome with blonde hair, giant goggles, and leather work apron. He was writing notes on schematic papers. "Cultist got to... him? her?"

"Apparently neither anymore." I said with an awkward shrug.

The gnome scrutinized me for a second and turned to the dwarf. "Nope, not weird enough! Cultists make weird monsters all the time and the worgen are way stranger! They are humans with a cursed druid form, of all things!"

"Are you still going on about that?" the dwarf said. "No, no, the fellow is a fresh adventurer."

He nodded. "Oh you want- hold on, I'll put in an order." he said, dug into his bag, and deployed a box that expanded into a steampunk mailbox. 

He started writing out a letter when the dwarf patted my arm. "Sorry 'bout that, it's an ongoing debate."

"No problem, I guess? Er, I'm sorry, I didn't get your name." 

"Lindsay of the Dark Irons, most call me Darkstone. You?" she said. I thought to myself. "There is no shame in picking up a new name. Many new adventurers choose to start over."

"...Yharnam. It's the name of a fictional place, but it fits." I said. "Why are you helping me? Not that I'm unappreciative, thank you for everything- but why?"

"The thing about people that can't die is that consequences don't stick as well and when adventurers are left to there own devices? Things get bad. A small number of us are completely heartless and will murder anyone or anything they come across for no reason." she adjusted her stance. "We noticed adventurers that are active in guilds or groups are far less prone to random violence. We help you in the hopes you don't go join their ranks."

"Uh, well thank you. I don't want to hurt anyone, so I don't think that will be a problem."

The gnome returned with a heavy backpack in hand. "Alright here you go. A backpack, a hearthstone, coin purse, and some food and water. You should head to somewhere safer and get some skill before running around here! Too dangerous for greenhorns!" he shooed us off and went back to his schematics. 

Darkstone gestured for me to follow her again and we wandered to a large open ornate tent with a human guy inside, embroidering a piece of cloth. "How much for three shirts for this one?" she asked and pointed her thumb to me. The tailor stood up and circled around me, examining the various arm joints. 

"Just plain shirts? Any color preferences?" the man asked.

Darkstone looked to me and I shrugged. "Black would be practical, but green is my favorite color." 

The tailor nodded and went to one of his bags and pulled out several bolts of frostweave. In less than a minute he had two black workman shirts and one green workman shirt in my size with six short sleeves and well as three pairs of suspenders. Darkstone attempted to hand over a purse of coins, but the tailor halted her. "I need volatile elements for my work, send me a few when you are able."

While we were leaving the tent she tapped my arm. "If you aren't ready to fight, then pick profession to keep yourself busy. Idle hands do not do ourselves too many favors." 

"...Alchemy, maybe?" I can gather materials easily, there is always a market for restoration potions, and is also immediately useful. 

Darkstone nodded. "Good. You will still have to learn to fight, Yharnam. Adventurers are makers and shakers of Azeroth and someday soon you will be called upon. Best be ready. Go to one of the large tents and get some sleep. Tomorrow we'll find a group for you until you find what you want to do." she offered a smile. "Do try to pay us back someday. Maybe we will see you around our fires helping the next adventurer."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 5: 1371  
> Total: 5765
> 
> Next Time: Adventure ho!


	6. 2.1 Worthwhile

Sleep didn't come easy and I rose the moment the more than three people were making noise. The few that I saw awake were craftsman. The gnome engineer from yesterday, a worgen inscriptionist, a draenei leatherworker, the human tailor from yesterday, and a night elf cooking up a storm.

Said night elf waved to me. "Here, eat up child. You look like you haven't eaten in weeks." she said while pressing a breakfast platter of food into my hands. Two eggs, two sausages, two pieces of toast, and several slices of grilled tomatoes. 

"Thank you and, uh, I'm not a child, I'm twenty-two." I said before nibbling on the toast. Very strongly spice, though how much of that was me or not was up in the air. 

"I am eight-hundred and fifty-eight years old and you are young." she said. Huh, that's pretty old. Or perhaps not as I vaguely remember a mention that elves had a lifespan of fifteen-thousand or something. "I am MoonshipDown or Meridia Lunarmight." huh, the WoW usernames have been surprisingly tame so far. 

"Yharnam, nice to meet you, ma'am."

"When you are done eating, would you mind helping ready more plates?" MoonshipDown asked and gestured over to the stake a clean plates and the platters of finished food. I nodded, uncomfortably shoveled down the rest of my plate, and set to work filling out the plates. The extra arms made for quick work and she was able to focus completely on just cooking enough for everyone. 

"Are camps like these normal?" I asked and set aside a full plate unto a crate being used as a makeshift table. More people started waking up and silently grabbing a plate. Most offered nods of acknowledgements before chowing down.

"Adventuring guilds tend to have caravans and such or a portal mage capable of transporting everyone back to their guildhall. Most parties prefer the safety of an inn however." she said. Safety? Aren't adventurers immortal or something? She must have noticed my confusion as she nodded. "Temporary death can be rather upsetting and a dead adventurer can be stripped of all their possession if one does not return to their bodies in time."

"Are there a lot of guilds?" 

MoonshipDown hummed and smiled. "Yes and no. There are hundreds of minor guilds of about ten to twenty persons that do not have a guildhall, but have a large enough presence in order for the banks to allow them a vault. Of major adventuring guilds, the Alliance and Horde have about five each; though conflicts change the numbers frequently."

"What is your class anyways, kid?" asked an approaching death knight. He didn't take a plate and I wasn't sure if undead could actually eat. The knight's race was humanoid, but anything beyond that was unknown with how armed the man was. 

I shrugged. "Shadow priest, maybe? Void magic came with..." I gestured to myself. "all this. Might just be little stuff or not, I dunno. I'm also a lot stronger than how I look. I would like to become an alchemist, though."

MoonshipDown started cleaning up her cooking tools and turned her head quizzically. "Perhaps you would be able to learn a protection warrior's skills."

"Don't pressure the kid! Let them be an assault specialization if they want!" called a new voice somewhere beyond one of the tents. 

"I am only offering a profitable course of action." she responded back. Oh gods, there's a tank shortage as always! Why does no one ever want to be a tank. 

"Uh, for reference, I have no combat experience. At all." I said.

MoonshipDown nodded. "Then now would be a good time to learn. Many would appreciate you taking up a shield."

A cat prowled out from behind a tent, the voice from before. "I said, don't pressure the kid!" 

"Er, I am willing to learn, but I will probably be terrible." Tanking would be useful and maybe I have a boss's worth of health. 

"Excellent." she said with a clap. 

The druid sighed and shifted into a worgen form. "Front line defensive specialist are a rare breed and one of the most difficult skill sets to master. How strong are you?" 

Shifting my feet for a moment, I approached the worgen, grabbed the back of his leather armor in one hand, and lifted them up with ease. Woo! Eldritch strength! "I guess the changes aren't all bad. The strength is cool." 

I put him back down and he snorted. "You might want to be more than skin and bones, first. Buy a shield too... or shields." He gestured to the multitude of arms.

"Wouldn't that be too unwieldy? And don't have any money to buy a single shield, much less than multiple." I said. "...wait, I collected a handful of twilight jasmine petals-"

The worgen inscriptionist lept out of her seat. "How many?"

I pulled out the petals from my back and handed the lot over. She examined them, handed me eight gold, and went back to her makeshift desk to mill the petals. "Uh."

MoonshipDown chuckled politely. "Do not worry, you were not cheated. You could have gotten a better reward through the auction house, but the difference would have only been a gold or two." she explained. I was more alarmed that a single flowers worth of petals amounted to eight gold. At least I could make use of my new coin purse. 

"Who do I go to for custom gear? Hrm. Probably be better off buying cheaper gear until I figure out what I am doing." I said aloud. The extra limbs and extended body parts would make buying any armor expensive as hell.

MoonshipDown pointed me towards the now awake relevant craftsmen. Specifically a male draenei leatherworker and a female human blacksmith. Together they made me my first armor set with my limited funds. 

The unfortunate problem with my arms was that any metal on the upper arms and connected chest would impede movement too much to be functional, so my chest and arms had to be leather for now. A functioning chest plate could be made with more money, but I needed to train first before tackling any big problem. The lower half of my arms and my legs could be properly outfitted with heavy armor.

All of the material were leftovers from earlier adventuring campaigns, so I got a deal on the purchase. The limb and leg armor was thorium mail, plain and utilitarian. The leather brigandine and poncho were made of borean leather from the Northrend campaign. Both the gauntlets and the boots had to be open toed/fingered to make way for my claws.

I was fairly certain they could have asked for much more gold and were talking pity on me. Or maybe they remembered being the newbie and were being sympathetic. 

Either way, my last purchase was a simple round metal and wood shield. With monstrous strength a shield bash to anything was going to hurt. 

"Well look at you!" said Darkstone as she approached. "Glad to see you took the initiative. I got a couple of people I'd like you to meet who need a hand."

Darkstone led me to a mage holding open a portal and we both entered. On the other side were two clearly experienced adventurers looking over a group of four.

Behind them all was a disheveled keep.

"Alright, this here is Yharnam and another little adventurer." said Darkstone and then she pointed to the keep. "Behind you is a keep full of mindless undead and your goal is to clear it out. If any of you die, one of us will revive you, but we will not offer any other assistance. Any questions?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 6: 1286  
> Total: 7051
> 
> Next Time: Into the Dungeon!


	7. 2.2 Pick Up Group

The three veteran adventurers: Darkstone, a male night elf druid, and a female draenei paladin were patiently observing us.

Our group was made of a female night elf druid, a male human paladin, a male gnome hunter, a female worgen mage, and myself. 

The worgen was the first to speak. "Good morning, I am Gibbs! A mage of Gilneas." Her fur was mostly black and white with highlights of brown. Her robes were soft and flowery lilac and she carried a solid metal staff in her one clawed hand. She wore no shoes had a small but noticeable notch scar on her nose.

"Well met, I am paladin Allert." said the human. He was tall in that he was only a foot shorter than I with bronze skin and black hair pulled into a neat ponytail. His armor was as steel grey that might not be steel and had a regal two-handed sword sword.

The druid offered a short bow. "Thistle." is all she said. He hair was shoulder length blue and framed her lavender face. A pair of red leaves tattooed around her silver eyes. She wore very simple black leather and had a wooden staff holster on her back. 

"I'm Yharnam and I am not really sure what class I am, though I have supernatural strength and void magic." I said. 

"Hunter Phineas, my new friends!" said the gnome. He had light blue hair and tanned skin with some pretty sweet sideburns. He wore brown leathers and had a bow and quiver at his side. "Soon to be hunter extraordinaire."

We all became awkwardly silent. Alright, let's try talking shop, I can totally talk shop. "Do we have a game plan or are we just winging it?" I asked only to get a few confused stares. "Alright, how about preferred combat positions? Damage, healing, ta- front line defense?" Tanking is not a term.

"What were you about to say?" asked the mage. Not hostilely, more curiously.

"Tanking." and offered a sheepish shrug. 

Phineas grinned. "Oh, I like that! Roaming armor on treads brings such a wonderful image to mind." he said. "I hunt, obviously! Though I can harry our foes."

"Me as well." Gibbs said.

"As a knight of the Holy Light, I can fulfill all positions." said Allert and Thistle nodded along. Not a very talkative druid. 

"...I guess I'll try and tank, but how are we doing this? Run in weapons swinging? Cautious and quiet? Do we have an idea of the floor plan or are we just sweeping through?" I asked. 

My pocket tank was a warrior who was very good at his job. He knew all the dungeon and raid maps beat by beat and would even plan for the PUG to pull on accident. During the Wrath of the Lich King days he would introduce himself to a PUG for Culling of Stratholme with 'The goal is to make the priest (me) run out of mana'. They never succeeded and we beat the timer every time. 

The keep looked like the generic model in the game from the outside, but there was no guarantee that floor plan was the same. 

"Cautious." voted Thistle. 

"Agreed." Allert said. Gibbs shrugged and Phineas offered nothing.

"Alright. We know there is mindless undead in there, but given there are not zombies everywhere then they had to have a source. Might be gone by now, but assuming that could be dangerous." I secured my shield on my middle right arm and called wisps of shadow to my free hands. Thistle shifted into cat form, Allert readied his blade, Gibbs took a fortifying breath, and Phineas loosely nocked an arrow. "Ready? Let's mosey." Always time for a classic, especially when approaching probably death. 

The front door had mostly rotted with only a few remains of wood hanging onto the hinges. The stones of the building were large and cracked, but seemed to be holding up. I wouldn't be bashing too hard of them, less I wanted the whole place to come down upon, though. 

The entry opened into a perpendicular hall and the right end held three zombies in various states of decay. They were too decayed to dodge a shield slam to the face and were completely unable to resist my attempt as Shadow Word: Pain. Not sure if it worked, but it was an attempt and that was all that mattered unless we died.

Mindful of my positioning, I left stood at an angle to leave enough room for the two ranged damage dealers to attack. Allert swung down heavy on one while Thistle clawed the other. That was... not bad at the moment and possibly the better than the usual method. The zombies were barely standing as it was, but spreading out the damage wasn't always a good idea. Focusing on one and killing them as soon as possible brings down the over all incoming injuries, but that was in the video game. 

Here, unless I found a way to supernatural pull attention, then maybe spreading could be the better option. Still didn't like it. The zombies went down and we severed the heads for good measure. 

The keep was a large square with towers at each corner. At the right end of the first all, there was another hall to the left and an abandoned guard room at the bottom of the tower. Inside the room was a few ruined sets of bunk beds, rotted crates, and one suspiciously intact chest. 

Gibbs and Phineas, having no sense of paranoia, opened the chest and were rewarded with actual treasure. Huh. Well I didn't have any pockets and left all my bag back at the adventurer's camp. All I had on me was my coin purse. Turns out Allert and Thistle also had no pockets. Phineas and Gibbs pocketed the coins with a promise to deal them out later with a disappointed look about our collective lack of pockets. 

We traveled down the rightmost hall of the keep and reached the other end with another tower barracks. This one had more zombies that went down just as easily. The room had nothing else of interest.

The back most 'hall' had made up the bulk of the first floor of the keep with it being the remains of a mess hall. To the right of the hall were a flight of stairs that left up and down. Inside the room were about eight undead; the first four went down so easily I became complacent and was almost gored by the one armored zombie. 

Three of the eight were armored and their arms were one large bone claw yet still decayed enough that we had initially ignored them. "Get rid of the unarmored ones." I hissed to not call the attention of the whatever was inevitably upstairs or downstairs. Combined with my already hissing voice the effect sounded like I was imitating a snake. 

The armored undead couldn't pierce my shield, but one cut through my poncho and brigandine. Thankfully did not puncture skin as the leather did blunt most of the hit and instead left a painful bruise on my ribs. The weaker zombies had been down in seconds. 

Thistle pounced on one undead soldier, pinning the zombie to the ground with a heavy clatter of armor. Phineas shot a blunt looking arrow into the skull of another and the target stumbled heavily with a resounding 'crack' of its skull. 

Downed and out, we severed the three heads. We had a bigger problem; the 'quiet' of our 'cautious and quiet' plan went right out he window and something was making noise in the basement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 7: 1276  
> Total: 9405


	8. 2.3 The Darkest of Souls

"Meet it head on or wait for it to come to us?" I asked while readying my shield towards the stairs. No words came but everyone stood their ground. "Thistle, keep your ears open behind us, we never checked the left hall and rooms. No one attack until I get our target's attention."

We smelled it first. While the undead smelled awful, the bodies had long since dried up. The new giant corpse was still oozing with blood and viscera from its many stitched together muscles. Three arms, all of them grotesquely mismatched carrying large bloody weapons: a hook on a chain, a hook on a hilt, and a large meat cleaver. An open stomach with the majority of organs only barely kept in by metal braces. A face bulging with blood and bound too tight with stitches. 

An undead abomination and I charged the monster. My shadows burned at its flesh, but I might as well have been giving it a sunburn for all the effect.

My shield withstood the heavy slam of the cleaver and my body skidded back into the wall from the force. Note to self: get more weight. Even if I had to weight myself down with solid metal and slowed to a crawl, I couldn't be a tank if I could be pushed around. 

The abomination threw its chained hook at me and with my free three right hands I grabbed it out of the air and pulled. The abomination lost grip, but only because it wasn't expecting that. In a straight contest of strength I would loose without any mass on my side. 

Something about it all wasn't right. When unfolded I could crush ogre with my bare hands and by logic I should weigh the same. Hell, I lifted the worgen back in camp despite my apparent lack of mass. Something supernatural was clearly in effect, but how? 

When the cleaver came down a second time I used my shield to parry. The momentum threw the abomination off balance and staggered it to its knees. My suffering in playing Dark Souls has finally paid off! This also meant that If I failed to parry, I would likely go flying. 

Thistle took advantage of the moment to rip off the smaller arm holding the hand held hook. The abomination swung around with its cleaver. Thistle dodged back into the rest of the group and Gibbs froze the legs of the abomination to halt its advance. 

I through the hook chain back, catching it upon a metal bracer of its chest, and pulled. The bracer ripped out and a piled of gore followed after. Momentum! I am the unstoppable force, but not the immovable object. As long as I am an acting force then I am the stronger of us. I shall be the Dark Souls tank!

Dashing forward, dodging another cleave, and staggering the next; Gibbs froze the arm that once held the chained hook solid and Phineas fired a concussive shot to its skull. A stitched on side of it's cranium flew off, but the abomination still functioned. 

The monster turned Phineas and threw its weight towards the gnome. Another toss of the chain and I had the open skull of the abomination caught fast enough to draw the monster off course and give Phineas enough time to bolt behind the better armored Allert. 

Gibbs tossed a fireball into the guts of the monster, not improving the smell in the slightest, and in the abominations writhing Allert swung his sword to decapitate. With a a putrid sound, the head sloughed off the neck and the abomination fell.

"...Does anyone have a handkerchief or a scarf I could borrow? My sense of smell- I've been holding my breath for the most part and it's not working too well." I asked while staring at the corpse. Breath was a habit and something I could only do consciously at the moment. Fighting made keeping that in mind difficult. "Also, abominations have to be made. We may have intelligent company." 

Allert shook the gore off his blade. "Any injuries? Thank the Light."

Gibbs wasn't fairly any better than me on the smell front and also lacked any nasal protection. "We- we need to keep moving. Up or down? Should we split up?"

"No." was Thistle's exasperated reply. She was futilely attempting to clean the rotted blood off her claws. My shield and poncho had splatters of blood, but nothing that couldn't be clean off eventually. 

Phineas attempted to recover his arrows only for the first two to break and the last to be stubbornly stuck to the point that he gave up. "Must have been guarding something!" he declared. Stealth had gone straight out the window and he wasn't even attempting to be quiet anymore. 

The chained hook was just as stuck in the skull and I abandoned the temporary weapon. "Basement first then? Phineas and Thistle, watch our backs as we go down." I said. 

The basement was so foul that I forced myself to not breath while going down. We found a long table covered in blood, barrels of body parts, a desk of surgical tools, and another chest. When I was sure the room was empty of persons, I chose to stand guard at the stairs while Allert examined the chest. Inside was wood wand with a glass diamond shaped head, a folded red cape, and a pile of gold coins. 

The wand went to Gibbs, Thistle accepted the cape in her night elf form before shifting back into a cat, and Phineas accepted holding onto the coin until the keep was cleared out. Making a sacrifice, I took a breath in order to talk. "Clear the rest of the ground floor or go to the second floor?" 

Everyone pointed up, not wanted to take in anymore air than necessary.

Up the flight of stair and we were on an overlook of the mess hall with doors that lead to halls on both sides. We took the left hall finding another flight of stairs that lead to the roof and the other to the meeting room that made up the most of the second floor.

We pushed open the door to the meeting room. There were dozens of rotted chairs on the bottom end where we entered and a 'stage' with short staircase that held a large table and four chairs.

Sitting in one, dressed in fine black clothing covered in skulls with vials of blood dangling from a leather belt, was a clearly sentient undead woman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 8: 1094  
> Total: 9421
> 
> Next Time: Round 2: electric Boogaloo


	9. 2.4 Battered

"Brother Allert! How good it is to see you." the undead woman said. Her hair was shaven off with a detailed tattoo of magic circle lines covering her skull. Her eyes were covered by a belt of leather sewn into her face, argh! Grey skin dried and carefully preserved and her body was covered in similar tattoos from what little I could see under her robes. She stood up, using her staff made up multiple bones and sinew with a collection of claws clutching a skull for the head. She was not an adventurer. "You have done well for yourself, brother."

Her voice was fond and Allert looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Were you behind this infestation?" He asked. He look to the stranger with a forlorn expression. 

"Oh no, brother. A few friends of mine found out about your little test and kindly informed me." she answered. No idea if she was lying or not. "Those friends are keeping your patrons busy while we talk."

I completely unsubtly put myself between Allert and the stranger. I didn't brandish any magic, but kept my shield ready. I briefly glanced back at the man. "Your call." I said. I didn't know this woman, but he did. If he thought she was not a threat then his word took priority. 

"No, she's- she's an old friend." Allert said.

I nodded, but didn't remove myself from in between them. I stepped aside enough so they could see each other, but ready to block. The stranger watched with a smile. "Thank you, brother. Sometimes I worry you forgot about me."

"Trust me, I could never forget you." Allert said.

She smiled. "This little test is beneath you, brother. None of you have struggled. How about I give you a real challenge." She slammed her staff onto the ground while Allert attempted to talk her down, but the the sound was lost in the screeching of her staff.

A portal opened before her and an imposing muscular figure. Pale with no hair and elongated ears. Large thick claws, twisted horns jutting forwards, large dark hooked wings, and cloven hoofed. A dreadlord with eyes burning with fel energies. 

My shield found the demon's face before he could pick a target. I tried to find the summoner, but she had disappeared sometime when I was distracted by the summoning. I dodged a swipe of his claw only to dazed by a hit from one of his wings. The limb was stronger than I expected and I didn't think I'd need to block. The dreadlord grabbed me by my face and slammed me into the ground. 

Thistle swore and shifted into bear for to maul the demon while I got back on my feet. Light washed over me, incredibly uncomfortable like being too close to a fire, but the pain faded to manageable levels immediately. Gibbs and Phineas had open fired while Allert was attempting to keep Thistle whole after each overwhelming strike from the dreadlord. 

Calling the void into my free hands- as my flesh and bone- my arms became void and I charged the dreadlord, my claws sinking into his back. The attack wasn't particularly damaging or deep, no the effect was the searing pain. He attempted to sweep me off the ground again with his wing, but I dodged back in time. 

When another claw came down my shield was ready and with a heavy blow, the dreadlord was staggered. Allert rushed forward and pierced the dreadlord's chest with his sword and pulled back before a errant claw could gore him. Thistle doubled back and shifted into cat form. The second we had cleared the immediate area out the dreadlord, Gibbs threw a flaming ball of magma and set the demon aflame. Phineas held his arrow for a second before letting lose an arrow and pieced through the dreadlord's skull. 

The demon struggled, unable to steady himself, before Allert returned and performed one last decapitation of the day. 

We all stood silent around the corpse. Fast walking into the room came the three veteran who looked to the corpse and back to us. Their clothing was mildly dishevelled, likely from however the undead lady's friends kept them busy. 

"Oh good, you don't need revival." said Darkstone.

The lady draenei was more interested with the demon. "More difficult than what we had planned, but you succeeded, nonetheless. Congratulations."

The night elf walked up to Thistle, took off his hood, and hugged the woman. The hair and skin were familiar to her night elf form, the two were likely related. The man shared a few words in Darnassian; Thistle didn't reply, but did share a nuzzle while still in cat form. 

"Let's get everyone back to Ironforge." Darkstone said. "We got a few rooms at the Stonefire Tavern for the lot of you."

"Er. My packs are all bag in camp." I pointed out.

"We noticed! We moved them soon after your test started." said Darkstone rather cheerily. "Now all of you follow me."

"Wait, what happened to-" Allert stopped himself and looked to the demon corpse. 

"The Razor Lords were driven off. They have a mage of their own and we can't afford to chase them down." said the draenei. "You five, our young newcomers, need rest."

They led us outside to a gnome mage who opened a portal. We all entered into the dwarven city of Ironforge.

Hot and humid, extremely loud, and smelling like so many burning things. So many things on fire. Still a step up from the zombie infested keep. We stumbled our way down down the tiled floor, guided by the lamps and braziers, to one of the many buildings cut into the carved cave walls.

Stonefire Tavern was a very simple place, though it was more for drinking than for renting a room if only because there were only three large multi-bed bedrooms on the second floor. One of those rooms was taken and we had to split the rooms between us. 

Also on the second floor were two communal baths and one unisex bathroom. On the first floor was the bar and a kitchen in the back. That was for later though.

First, those of us in armor shed them. My shirt had thankfully been spared a hole, but the brigandine and poncho needed to be washed and patched. 

Second, we got all sat at one of the tables on the ground floor and all ordered food in drinks. Thistle ordered a red meat with some tea, Phineas got a stew and a juice, Gibbs got a heavy alcohol and roasted bird, Allert ordered a light alcohol and thick slices of turkey, and I ordered dried fruit and highlands spring water. The fruit was clearly meant to be packed for travel when leaving the inn, but it was also the least offensive to my taste buds item I could find on the list. 

We divvied out the monetary gains of our test under the silent gazes of the veterans. They might have even planted those two chests to give us a reward because who leaves behind over one-hundred gold coins in a keep? We got about twenty gold each which went into my purse and made up for all the gold I spent on my armor. That I'd have to get fixed already.

Darkstone clapped her hands together. "Alright. Let's talk about how you did."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 9: 1234
> 
> Odd note: Originally the chapter had 1235 words but then I just had to drop one for novelties sake. 
> 
> Next Time: There's a bath scene, I kid you not.


	10. 2.5 Making Plans

The older druid nodded to Thistle. "Tali- Thistle, you performed well. You could have used your feline form's stealth abilities, though the situation did not require such."

Darkstone gestured to Phineas and Gibbs. "Both of you have the problem: you hesitated whenever an ally was too close to the enemy. Not an awful fault, but the fights could have been ended quicker if you were more confident. The damage you two did do was fine and a few well placed stuns were great."

The paladin folded her hands and smiled to Allert. "Keeping your allies alive is no small feat. You made no tactical mistakes, but you have much room to improve." Then all three turned to me.

"You lost the enemies' attention twice. While the first you recovered, the second time your ally had to step in and take your place." started the paladin.

The druid nodded and continued. "You kept deferring to your comrades. While such in acceptable out of combat, you do not have the luxury in enemy territory. You stalled when you needed to keep pressing forward and hesitated far too much."

Darkstone folded her hands together. "You have shadow magic and all you used was a weak Shadow Word: Pain and a variant of the same spell as a melee attack."

I swallowed my conflicting pride and shame and nodded. Thistle had no reaction, but the other three had varying degrees of confusion. The fact was, in modern World of Warcraft, the tank and the healer had far less room for error. If DPS fucked up they could recover with ease. If a healer fucked up they have a limited window to recover. If a tank fucked up then someone was likely to die. 

If I was going to tank, then I couldn't make that many missteps. 

Darkstone smirked. "That said, good job on your first real... you said 'tanking' right? Good word. Good job on your first attempt at tanking. Go clean up and get some rest. The lot of you did good today."

We sluggishly climbed the stairs and split the group into sexes into the bathrooms. I awkwardly stood at the doors with pants and workman shirt retrieved from my pack. 

"Are you alright, friend?" asked Phineas. 

I attempted to run my hand through my hair, but the knots were too thick. "Not... really sure what I am anymore." 'Aberration' was a bit to vague and probably wouldn't fit to well on any government forms.

An arm looped around one of mine and a dark skinned woman with black and white hair tugged me towards on of the baths with Thistle behind her. "Who cares? We need to fix that hair anyways." said the familiar voice of Gibbs. She had a pile of towels and toiletries held in her other against her chest. "Don't drown, you two." she said to the Phineas and Allert before closing the door behind us. 

The room had one large bath set the stone floor and four showers stalls set into the walls lit by large warm lanterns. Little bars of soap and clean towels were provided, individually wrapped in waxed paper and I had to wonder how much a night at the tavern costed. 

My hair did not untangle easily and eventually I gave up until I could find a brush. The water was blessedly warm, if a bit too warm for my liking. It was entirely possible the water was heated by the energy radiating from the magma under the city. 

Thistle was the first clean and started the bath before we all got in to just soak. The bath was definitely not made for dwarves in mind as the the water height was comfortable for those of human size. A bit too short for me, but the worst of my aches were my lower ribs and lower back. 

"That could have gone worse." said Gibbs. She made small braids in her shoulder length choppy hair. The ends looked like someone went to town on it with a knife... or claws. "You okay, Yharnam?"

"Yeah. They were right, I can't make that many mistakes if I'm the front line." I admitted and continued to try and undo the hair knots. Thistle through a comb in my direction and started working up from the ends up. "Thanks."

Gibbs moved closer with her own comb and helped with a handful. "You would have such nice hair if you got a cut and kept it cleaner."

"Eat more." was Thistle's commentary with an elegantly raised eyebrow.

Gibbs agreed. "I can see all of your ribs... the ribs you have too many of." she said with a blink. "Too many arms and too many ribs."

I tried to come up with comments at their bodies, but I didn't really have anything. Both of them were beautiful in their own ways. Thistle was a tall, muscular, and regal queen. Gibbs had soft curves, wonderfully expressive face, and melodious voice.

If I wasn't painfully asexual, I'd probably have a crush or two. 

"Yeah. I was a normal human, but Twilight Cultists got me and woke up a monster. Not really exactly sure what they did outside of-" I said and shook my hands. Ultimate jazz hands! "and senses have been heightened." 

"I think all of us in here have that problem." Gibbs said and Thistle repeatedly nodded in frustrated sympathy. A werewolf, a werecat, and a aberration walk into a bath; they whine about sensory issues. At least the soap was pleasantly bland. 

With the two of us, my hair decently straightened out. "Thank you so much."

Gibbs smiled and looked between Thistle and I. "Do you think we will stick together?"

Thistle shrugged, but didn't disagree and seemed to be favorable to the idea. I was a bit confused. "Uh. You realize I'm a bit new to all this? Today was my first actual fight."

"You did pretty great then!" said Gibbs and Thistle offered a thumbs up. "I was only just pulled from my classes a week ago and I only did study and theory."

"Oh."

Thistle held up a finger. "Environmental engineer. One week of combat training."

"And I'm pretty sure Phineas was a game hunter. Allert might be the only one of us with proper training." said Gibbs.

"Well, I'm certainly not against the idea, you guys are all pretty cool. I want to learn herbalism and alchemy and start a business, but nothing that keeps me settled."

Gibbs tapped her chin. "I want to continue my arcane studies, though I like your business idea. Maybe I could become a professional enchanter."

Thistle gave another thumbs up.

We finished our bath, got dressed and chose a room, but left the door ajar. The room had four beds, all too small for me, but I didn't mind letting my feet hang off. A small sacrifice for a mattress. 

Gibbs waved to the two men as they left the bath. "We are thinking about sticking together, what do you two think?"

Allert, dressed in white night shirt and pants, nodded. "I would be honored to continue working with all of you."

"Hah, why ruin a good thing? Count me in!" Phineas said.

I may have made mistakes, but I could improve; a couple of new friends were a good motivation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 10: 1221
> 
> Up next: Shopping and Dining


	11. 3.1 Aberration's First Weapon

Learning herbalism was a very self-study kind of craft in that the trainer sold me a tiny reference journal of plants and a storage kit for six silver. The kit was a 'bigger on the inside' belt pouch that contained a pair of clippers, a few small jars, and a spool of twine to bind bunches of herbs. 

The alchemy trainer was different in that the gnome trainer had offered whole classes that anyone could join for a fee depending on the difficulty. The class would teach a specific potion and the price was for covering the cost of materials and the time of the trainer used for practice.

The apprentice level alchemy was so easy that it also had a 'apprentice kit' that was a belt pouch that contained a small mortar and pestle, a paring knife, an small arcane powered burner, a matching cast iron pot, and flat spoon. The kit cost me seven gold and came with small recipe book of about twenty recipes. The recipes covered most known potions at the apprentice and journeyman level of skill along with a warning about mixing potions without proper training.

I'd probably stop by an alchemy trainer for classes after the 'beginner's' potions. The first three potion recipes of the book were so easy that anyone could make them. The potions probably wouldn't be of good quality if made by a non-alchemist, but they were difficult to screw up. 

I was down to 14 gold coins total and a lot of silvers and coppers. I still needed to repair my poncho and brigandine, buy a belt for the pouches, and a weapon. A light armor merchant in the Military Ward of Ironforge helped me with the firs two for three gold, leaving me eleven gold to buy a weapon.

Timberline Arms was nearby in the Military Ward and full of weaponry of all types. Swords, maces, hammers-

Tall and heavy, a halberd of solid metal with a white wrap bolted in the center of the haft for hand placement. Usually, a solid weapon is a bad idea because it threw off balance and made the weapon too heavy, specially something as large as a halberd. I, however, have six arms and one of them could carry the pole-arm and all three could easily manipulate it. 

The head consisted of a large stylized axe with a spike at the top and a smaller axe in the back. The smaller back was also shaped in that it could be used as a hook. 

The beast of a weapon cost me seven gold and I was more than happy to pay, leaving me with four gold and more to do with as I wish.

Bought a few vials for my alchemy kit and headed back to the tavern where we promised to meet when we were done with our errands. 

I was not the first back; Thistle sat at a table eating an early lunch to which I joined. She offered nod to my halberd before I fed it into my backpack and ordered myself another meal of dried fruit and water.

Thistle frowned. "Roasted quail." she said to the barmaid and then pushed it to me when the plate came back. She raised and eyebrow at my stare. The quail looked much like a smaller roasted turkey. Slowly, with a knife and fork, I carved at the bird and uncomfortably chewed through the meat. I didn't like it. I'd have to get to food again eventually, but I was a picky eater before and I was only worse.

Eventually most of the bird was gone, I put down my utensils, and shuddered. Thistle snorted and I childishly stuck my tongue at her which got a small smirk.

"I wonder how Darkstone and the others were watching us in the keep. They apparently saw our fight with the dreadlord, but didn't know if we were dead or not at the end." I said.

Thistle tilted her head in acknowledgement of the question. "Mage?"

"The one who made the portal for us? I guess? I don't know much about the average mage skill set." Warcraft's mages were obviously based off of Dungeons and Dragon's wizards down to have the same schools of magic. Which was interesting given Warcraft was a blatant theft of Warhammer. Hell, originally Warcraft one was to be a Warhammer game until the deal fell through. Divination did exist, though I couldn't tell you the spells of this universe. "You got everything you needed done?"

Thistle nodded and presented an engineer's toolbox from her backpack. Huh, she did say she was an environmental engineer. Not exactly sure what the entails on Azeroth. 

"I got more arrows!" said Phineas as he entered the Tavern and joined the table. "Filled my quiver with three hundred arrows!" Which was no longer an impressive amount now that I had three leather packs, a backpack, a coin purse, and two pouches with the same extra capacity properties. "How was your hunt for a weapon?"

I took out my halberd from my backpack and deftly twirled it in my hands. I was definitely not that dexterous before monster form and was another bonus to take advantage of. 

"I don't think I've met someone using a halberd and a shield." Phineas said and mischievously rubbed his hands together. "What a good use of those extra arms!"

Allert and Gibbs were the last to return. Allert was sporting a new dark red cape and Gibbs was visibly tired but accomplished. "I can now create portal to Dalaran, Ironforge, and Darnassaus at the cost of all my coin." She still smiled and I couldn't blame her, portals would be incredibly useful.

"Dalaran? You want to go to Northrend?" Phineas asked, clutching his bow and grinning ear to ear. "Think of the game!"

"Do we have the money for supplies? I only have four gold left." I had to ask.

"We will be cautious and adventurer in the vicinity of towns. If problems arise then Gibbs will be capable of getting us back to civilization." said Allert.

"...Well Thistle, Gibbs, and I need something for our feet. That or some sort of magic against frostbite." I wiggled my toes from my open metal boots. "Can't we all get frostbite from our armor freezing?" 

Thistle's head snapped up to the tavern entrance and we all looked over to see the male night elf druid with paper leaflets in his hand. "You have options."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 11: 1082
> 
> Up Next: The Fine Art of Convenience


	12. 3.2 Alchemy!

Azeroth had many solutions to environmental dangers born from many professions; some were public domain, some were not. 

Tailors, leatherworkers, jewelcrafters, and blacksmiths had ways of making their crafts weather resistant or climate controlled. 

Enchanters, engineers, inscriptionists, and alchemists were all over the place in terms of what they could do and made up most of our pooled skills.

Gibbs was a journeyman enchanter, she was studying in Dalaran before being found- becoming?- an adventurer. She knew how to enhance armor and weaponry, but wasn't sure how to make approach weather resistance. She had ideas, though, which was more than the rest of us. She was also an apprentice tailor and was more unsure in that area than in enchanting.

Allert didn't have any of the primary profession skills, but was a master in cooking, first aid, fishing, and riding. He was also the only one of us with military training and connections.

Thistle was an environmental engineer which, as far as I could tell, on Azeroth meant she was an engineer with ethics. Which was surprisingly uncommon. She wasn't all that skilled in personal heaters, but could construct a campsite sized heater. 

Phineas was a leatherworker and his only idea was layering. He was eager to hunt down large game and make several giant fur coats. His main focus would be path finding as he was the only one of us in training in that area. 

My field to be was alchemy and was the most versatile pile of nonsense I had ever read about. Sure there were set recipes, but shifting even the amount of ingredients created wild variations. From what I could tell all of the non-armor/non-accessory professions had this problem.

Hell, Allert knew there were meals that could increase cold resistance, he just didn't know the recipes himself. One of us should be able to figure something out, which is why 'Record' was only offering hints. 

Record was Thistle's uncle and had a hand in all the campaigns and more. There was a story behind them, but I wasn't bold enough to ask further.

"You would benefit most from learning research skills and making connections now." Record said and stroked his short beard. "No one is forcing you to learn, if you desire you could simply buy what you need, but I strongly encourage all of you to make use of your skills."

Or, hopefully, skills to be in my case. Though it was pretty clear to everyone that I was not coming up with the solution for this round. Instead I was just going to do general alchemy research while the other used their honed skills to figure out how to brave the frozen north.

While the recipe book covered recipes, it lacked anything about theory. So back to the local alchemist of Ironforge who had several books I could read while in the alchemist's lab. Buying a copy was an option, but my funds were limited and I would probably ruin them anyways. 

The most basic method of making potions was 'chop, boil, and strain'. Some didn't even require straining as the magic involved would dissolve all ingredients into a thick liquid. Some called for mincing the ingredients and letting them infuse to a binding liquid for a set of time. Sometimes it was a matter of extracting substances out of ingredients to make oils. 

The majority of alchemy ingredients was biological matter with the occasional use of various elementals and metals.

Of biological matter; plants and body materials, such as natural toxins or blood, were the most common. I wasn't too sure on metals or elementals though both were common in transmutations rather than potions or elixirs. While transmutation was cool and useful, I though potions were more interesting and more immediately useful. 

Peacebloom, silverleaf, and earthroot were for purchase in the Commons from a small plant based shop. Mostly they sold vegetables that were probably imported from Stormwind City, but they had the most common herbs of Azeroth. Peacebloom and silverleaf were forty copper for a whole plant and earthroot for eighty copper a root. 

I bought a golds worth of peachbloom and silverleaf and made a few healing potions. By the third I had the very simple recipe mastered. You didn't even need to boil the product, just throw the whole steams into a vial of water and let it sit for maybe a minute for the most basic form. That version was passed around as a family home brew method that was safe for everyone. 

The 'advanced' version forwent water, diced the ingredients, and simmered the liquids naturally in the plants over a burner. Strain the finished product and you got a teaspoon of concentrated minor healing potion with all the power of the 'in water' method. 

The same methods applied to elixirs of minor defense. which I also made three of. I didn't buy any earthroot so no elixir of lion's strength or attempting a weak troll's blood elixir.

The alchemist's book gave one rather important note: experimenting one's creations on oneself is a terrible idea unless you were an adventurer. Since adventurers couldn't stay dead and would recover from just about anything after reviving, testing creations on oneself was recommended. 

Not that I was eager to try. It was one thing to be told you were immortal and another to believe. 

Ultimately, Phineas and Gibbs figured out a solution. Layering cloth or leather enchanted with a make shift frost resistance for everyone main armor. For Gibbs, Thistle, and I we bought simple iron bracelets and gave them the same enchantment. We each got four, one for each limb.

The enchantment wasn't that great, it was enough. More or less a substitute for common gloves and could be improved upon. Someday. 

Getting to Dalaran was easy via Gibbs' portal and she also guided us to the Silver Enclave to rent a room in A Hero's Welcome for the night. Tomorrow we were going to hunt big game and practice our skills against the beasts of Northrend. 

The bed of the inn was still too small and my feet dangled off the edge again. Unlike Ironforge were the ambient heat kept me warm, the cold air of the north had me shivering throughout the night. 

Which wasn't as noticeable as the vivid nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 12: 1054
> 
> Up Next: teethteethTEETHteeth


	13. 3.3 teethTeethTEETH

Cysts lining rows of teeth, taut and pulsing. Every movement of the jaws put pressure on the cysts and so one must speak and never be quiet. 

A jaw snapped shut trapping a hand caught between the teeth.

The cysts burst, thousands upon thousands of cysts ripping open at once, releasing untold numbers of writhing parasites. A nameless, eyeless, nose-less, mouth-less, faceless tide.

Skin of the hand stripped away with the tide, leaving sinew and bone behind. The bone claw fingers wrapped around a tooth and freed the tooth from the weakened flesh. One of thousands, one of countless, and utterly negligible. 

The hands felt everything and nothing. The world was so loud, pungent, painful, and there was no reason to acknowledge anything. No reason to feel anything. This is how they were made to be. 

Something pulled at the remaining skin and had no reason to turn the call down; never did. The weakest prison, but there was no reason to attempt to escape. The mouths laughed and laughed.

And died.

The paper thin prison remained unchallenged. The stripped arm regrew flesh and spilt white blood into waters. The blood moved and never challenged the prison. The prisoner wasted and never challenged the prison. 

People challenged the prison.

The prisoner had never lived since it wasn't made to be that way. 

Then it lived and challenged the prison. 

My bones ached as I woke and realized that the dream was probably meant something. Was that a vision, memory, or metaphor? If it was a memory, the body's previous master was a bit crazy. Who fights an Old God with untold teeth by sending a monster whose attack plan involved sticking a hand into a mouth of teeth? The Old God the body used to serve could have been any of them except Yogg-Saron. Oh maybe not, they were all kind of crazy.

Sleep was no longer and option and I stretched with my bones clicking from the motions. The sun hadn't risen yet, everyone was asleep, and there wasn't a good reason to wake them. 

Early breakfast was uncomfortably chewing on cheese on toast with fresh apple slices. The locals did stare a bit, but being an adventurer apparently excused all sorts of appearances. 

Phineas was the first to awake with the rising sun and offered no words as he gnawed on roasted bird a bit like a zombie. 

Thistle and Allert woke next and, while not lively, were completely aware of there surrounding and greet us before eating breakfast. Gibbs was the last person to wake with the sun silhouetting the edge of the city. Gibbs was painfully sunny to the others and I shared small talk. 

"Did you used to have a house here?" I asked.

"Oh no, I lived in the student dorm's with most of the other foreign students. Truth be told, I might have been a bit eager to leave when I became an adventurer." 

Which had me pause. "So was there a definite line when you weren't and were an adventurer?"

"Well, yes. I woke up one day and a visiting adventurer mage just looked at each other and we knew. Was it not like that for you?"

"No- well, actually it was, but-" I shrugged all my arms. "other things were going on. My senses were going nuts too and I just assumed it was part of the monster body." 

"I'd say you recovered pretty well! Look at you all armored and ready to go!" she clapped her hands together once with her praise. "Hows the coat?"

The 'coat' in question was layered cloth and leather cut like a tabard. Along with the enchantment on my armored arms and legs and the bracelets for my digits, I was ready to go. I still wore my poncho over it all if only for my shoulders and armor joints. 

"Wonderfully warm if a bit stiff." I said and adjusted the iron bracelet on one wrist. Wearing it felt a bit like sticking ones' hand directly into sunlight. "You?"

"My fur is going to be soaking wet, but I'd rather be wet than frozen." she said. 

"...Sorry if this is insensitive- I have to ask, why don't you stay in human form?" 

"It feels like being trapped, like a constant claustrophobic cage. I only really shift forms when bathing because I can't stand the feeling of wet fur. I suppose the innkeepers prefer not having to clean up fur."

Yeah, being folded was uncomfortable as all hell. Should I tell them that? I could, they were pretty cool people. "...I can sympathize with that." I said somewhat cryptically. Maybe later when I am more comfortable with the world. She raised an eyebrow, but didn't push. "What else should we pack? Food?"

"No need, I can conjure food and water. I only know what my teachers taught me when we... when we lived in Gilneas City, but you would all be lucky to taste proper Gilneas food and drink." she said. 

"I can't wait to try some." What was Gilneas' Earth counterpart? Victorian Europe/Germany supposedly. What was Victorian food like? Whole roasted game, stews, game pies, and sandwiches of all things. For desserts: fancy little cakes, cookies, scones, jellies, tarts, and pastries. Several of the desserts were little things that one could eat with tea as the Victorian era was the rise of afternoon tea time. "...do you miss...?"

"All the tough questions today, huh?" she said and continued before I could get in an apology. "Yes, I miss Gilneas. I miss the waves lapping at the cliffs, I miss the busy stuffy streets, and I miss the stupid constant storms. We will get it back someday."

"I don't have much to offer, but you have my help if you want." I may not be getting home anytime soon, if at all, and I could sympathize with being on the wrong side of a wall. 

"Thank you, Yharnam. I don't think it will be anytime soon, though." Gibbs said, echoing my unsaid words. Her fangs peaked through her grimace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 13: 1014
> 
> Up Next: Hunting with a Hunter


	14. 3.4 Snake? Snake?! SNAKE!

Well, I was immediately lost the moment we stepped into the snow. I knew that we were in north Dragonblight, I could see the mountain ridge that separated Dragonblight and Crystalsong Forest behind us. I could get up to underneath Dalaran if necessary and perhaps that I was all I needed.

My heavy braid had been collecting snow and frost since arrived in Dragonblight and maybe wasn't the best hairstyle for combat. Contemplated cutting all the hair off, but Gibbs gave me puppy eyes which stopped me short. 

Phineas was leading, tracking something specific through the snow. All the tracks looked like sunken indistinct imprints in the snow to me. Whenever we passed I tree, I plucked up whatever frozen herbs I could. Some were valuable like tiger lilies, some were more common like mageroyal or briarthorn. All were useful to my complete lack of skill, so no reason not to pluck while I passed. 

"Oh look at that." Phineas said overlooking the plains of snow into the distance. 

A large serpent, spikes riding up its sides with a main of fur down its back and two large mandible like spikes framing its beak like mouth full of teeth. The spikes were icy blue, the fur vaguely purplish blue, the back scales dark desaturated purple, and the underbelly scales a reddish orange.

"Our target?" asked Gibbs as she huddled her paws under her overcoat. The bracelets were warm enough for survival and no more. My own fingers were mostly curled up under my poncho. 

Thistle had no such luck, but was taking the harsh weather better than any of us except Phineas. The winter weather was a homecoming to him. 

"That she is!" he said. He could tell the sex of a snake just by looking at it? Or was this like how boats are all female for unknown reasons? "Scales, fur, meat, and a tough target! She's perfect."

"Alright, Everyone ready?" I asked as I pulled my halberd from my bag and hefted it over my shoulder. With everyone nods, I marched forward. Thistle disappeared in the snow while Allert, Phineas, and Gibbs stood back with their weapons ready.

The hulking jormungar darted towards me the moment I breach its territory and finding my shield slamming into its face. The giant snake curled into itself in confused pain. Thistle took the opportunity to pounce and sink her claws into the neck scales. She lept off and disappeared back into the snow while Phineas and Gibbs opened fire upon the writhing jormungar.

The snake attempted to snap towards the ranged attackers, but the hook of my halberd found its mandible spikes and yanked it off course. The snake proceeded to spit at me; I put my shield up in time to protect most of my body, but the two arms were hit and the unarmored skin started dissolving under the leather and cloth.

I was not proud to say that I screamed, though I saved face by virtue of my scream being a psychic scream. The jormungar withdrew in terror. After the initial pain had passed and Allert had healed the most critical of the damage, the pain was replaced by wrath. Cold, unmerciful rage to tear the serpent apart with my bear hands in my unfolded form.

Not how I wanted to reveal my true form though and that completely unimportant desire kept my mind in check. Tunnel vision, ho! 

Allert called down heavenly light upon the beast and I swung for the neck, splitting Thistle's earlier cuts even further. 

All of Phineas' arrows were landing upon the neck and head to spare as much scale to salvage as possible. There were no eyes to prey upon, though our attacks seemed to pierce either way. He fire a series of marked shots and the beast stalled under the damage.

Thistle lept back into the fray and ripped open its throat. She licked at the blood on her claws as the jormungar gave its death throws. "Scales?"

"Plenty undamaged areas for me to skin, just give me a moment!" Phineas said before I stopped him from rushing forwards. With several raised four handed blows, I severed the spin of the snake.

"Just to be sure." I said. Most of the neck up was too damaged to salvage anyways. I think. Leatherworking wasn't my thing, but keeping my team safe was. 

Phineas didn't care in the slighted and dug out a skinning knife. His movements were fascinating, more like a performance art than what I'd remember of leatherworking on Earth. Though to be fair, my understanding of scaled skinning was limited to alligators after a particularly odd wiki walk.

He cut diagram like lines into the back hide before skinning the individual pieces and rolling them into rolls that he tied with twine. He had four rolls of dark purple scales and six rolls of reddish orange underbelly scales. 

The sunburn-like Light washed over me again and all the damaged muscles in my injured arms twitched at the revival. Which brought my attention to my very obviously white blood. Huh. Would that be easier or harder to clean out of clothes than red blood.

"Yharnam, your arm..." Allert said and his eyebrows furrowed. He continued to heal me; the cold nipping at my skin and the light singeing my muscles had me twitching in place.

"Yeah, the white blood is new to me too." I said. My skin looked- well not normal for a human, but normal for me at this point in my life. "Thanks, man."

"Thank you for keeping us safe." he said. He looked at me with a hard stare before aiding Phineas with carving out meat. Something about the difference between chilled meat and worm meat. Soon everything was packed and stored away in bags.

"Should we head back to Dalaran?" half begged Gibbs as she summoned a baseball sized of fire over her hands. 

"Yes." Thistle begged. "Retry heating methods, please."

Phineas had his hunt for the day and shrugged. Allert gave another stern look at me. "I would appreciate having time for everyone to heal naturally." 

"I'm fine." I said. He stared. "...I'm fine enough? I could use the time to practice alchemy?" Allert nodded to the offered and Gibbs portalled us back to Dalaran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 14: 1050
> 
> Up Next: Crafting Montage


	15. 3.5 Stand back, I'm doing SCIENCE!

My spot was probably not the most efficient alchemy station. I sat on the outer side of of the Dalaran wall with my back resting on said wall. My journal of plants in my lap, my arcane burner with pot and spoon in front of me, parring knife resting on a nearby rock, and my pack to my side which contained my collected herbs.

Goldclover was a 'filler' ingredient. On it's own it promoted health though was more commonly used to bolster the effects of other ingredients. 

Other ingredients had less distinct effects: talandra's rose mostly promoted mana, but had a known accuracy elixir and tiger lilies seemed to favor physical enhancement, but then had a elixir that increased spell power. 

The simplest answer was that magic plants don't follow reasonable logic. A more reasonable answer was I just didn't know enough to understand the logic within. 

My first Northrend native potion wasn't too bad. Resurgent healing potions was just goldclovers and water and boiled. More efficiently was extracting dried goldclover using the absorption method with weak alcohol to make the aforementioned common potion/elixir base. 

Which lead to me stumbling on another not so common base: blood. Also one of the most dangerous, especially variants like felblood with its naturally corrupting elements. Aberration's blood was most likely just as dangerous which is why I was looking at the crystal vial with about a teaspoons worth of my blood resting at the bottom.

I was curious. Visually my blood was odd and could be benign. Or maybe it was poison! It wasn't acidic on it own at least or my clothes would have been ruined instead of stained.

Staring at the bottle, I plucked a sickly rose hip from a talandra's rose. The hip split easily between my claws, revealing the limited cluster of small seeds within. 

Any magical plant on Azeroth had a screwy growth system; it was possible for plants to grow without pollination, but instead via magic flow. This had the side effect of specific herbs sprouting out of nothing. Thus seeds were only useful in a garden with a steady flow of magic or a mage to feed the herbs manually. Then you had to have a decent herbalist to collect the plants or most of the plant would dissolve. Supposedly out of magic imbalance, but I was convinced it was out of spite. 

The three seeds were dropped into the vial and sunk into the thin pool of white blood. Nothing happened, yet. I set the vial aside on a rock before using talandra's rose pieces for an attempt at crafting an icy mana potion. 

The finished product wasn't terrible, but was only barely functional. Though, that was my own fault as I hadn't actually bought any of the recipes. I remembered the base ingredients from my pocket tank when we played Wrath of the Lich King. The goldclover base I figured out from reference journal of plants as it detailed the plant's most common use. 

With nothing but time to lose, I experimented. Whole goldclovers, a whole talandra's rose, and a whole tiger lily in a pot with water and set to simmer over my arcane burner. In another vial was talandra's rose petals in goldclover base at room temperature. 

In fifteen seconds the second mixture turned a luminescent sky blue. After a minute the first mixture proceeded to freeze into a solid block of ice despite being on the burner. Prying the ice block out of the pot showed the heat did melt the bottom after the reaction. I couldn't see anything else visually notable about the ice block and had to wonder if the freezing was the only effect.

As tempting as it was, I wasn't going to down a glowing potion without supervision. Best to wait until I at least had Allert's first aid skilled supervision.

Sighing, I started more goldclover bases. The first one had only steeped for about five minutes and would likely have higher quality with time. 

Mageroyal and briarthorn minced and vigorously shaken in a closed vial without any liquid caused the whole thing to light up for a moment before settling into a lime green semi-liquid material similar to pudding. Probably not a standard potion as pudding would be inconvenient to drink, but was easily the more fun to make. 

Thus with all the leftover ingredients with absolutely no measuring were minced, shoved into a vial, and shaken with childish glee. The reaction was a cross between shaken soda and a glow stick and settled into what looked like a beige bubble tea. 

I never had bubble tea before and I kind of wanted to try. Not try the potion, that would be a terrible idea; anything that could take minced ingredients and make little black marbles in a milkshake substance was going to do something phenomenally odd. 

The sound of breaking glass jolted me to attention. 

The vial of the seed and my blood had shattered by a completely normal talandra's rose. More interesting was the leafless vines wrapped around the stem of the flowers. Sinew-like in color and texture, the vines stretched with branches eerily similar to boney fingers delicately holding onto the flower. 

I ignored years of watching horror movies by gently poking the clearly monstrous vine. No response. Pinching a 'finger' proved the plant stiff and crisp. Despite the eerie appearance the vine was just a vine. The vine was easily pulled off as there was nothing holding in place beyond the 'grasp'. 

With lack of common sense, I minced the vine, put the all white pieces into a bottle, and shook. The result was a dense white smoke that didn't escape the vial when opened and leveled like a liquid in the vial when moved.

Mincing the talandra's rose, dropping it in the smoke, and shaking produced a pinkish foam liquid like food colored steamed milk. I didn't like starbucks, or coffee in general, but by the gods I wanted to drink the foam. Why did all my weird as hell looking experiments look so interesting to taste?

Well, I had four unknown mixtures that needed examination; the glowing blue, the green pudding, the bubble tea, and the pink foam. Maybe the local alchemist shop would have some advice for a newcomer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 15: 1051
> 
> Up Next: Don't drink it- WHAT DID I JUST SAY?!


	16. 4.1 Awkward Product

The two alchemists of Agronomical Apothecary in the Magus Commerce Exchange were a gnome and a human.

The gnome face was wrinkled and smiling with bright orange eyes and neatly combed red hair. She dressed in purples and golds and her name was Linzy Blackbolt.

Patricia Egan, a tall human woman with blonde hair and olive eyes handled supplies and inventory. Her clothes were less fancy and her hair framed her face. 

When I ducked into the Apothecary they both looked up from their books and exchanged glances between me and each other. Ceilings could be uncomfortably close these days, though most buildings were tall enough outside of the doors themselves. 

"Er, sorry to impose, may I ask some questions about alchemy?" I asked. "How do alchemists test their experimental mixtures?"

"Are you an adventurer?" asked Blackbolt and I nodded. "Then I'd recommend just drinking the mixture in question."

"Wait, really?"

"Due to adventurer's immortality a very common method of testing is to pay one to test the potions. The worst outcome is their body obstructing the floor before they resurrect. If you are willing, may I see what you have made?" 

I took out my four vials. "I'm not going to lie, two of those were the alchemy equivalent of cooking leftovers together. I had extra material and was just fooling around without planning."

Blackbolt held the green pudding vial up first. "The consistency is all wrong, but this is definitely an elixir of wisdom variant." She put that down and picked up the glowing blue one. "And this a potion of nightmares! I take it these are the two intentional ones? What recipes did you use?"

"Er, well, none."

"Well that explains that! Good work for working from scratch, but they are subpar compared to the streamlined recipe." she explained. I shrugged and she picked up the bubble tea and the pink foam. "These two could do anything. Normally I would suggest caution, but I know better."

Adventurers must look absolutely mad from the outside point of view. We could sense each other, but the non-adventurer populous couldn't and just see a bunch of people behave wrong. I hadn't been behaving like the more common adventurer as I still had a fear of dying, but how long until I was as fearless as the rest? 

"Are there other options?"

"Of course! Some casters are capable of telling the effect of potions through various arcane or spiritual divinations and animal testing is another. But really, adventurers are the best and safest test subjects."

"Well. Thank you for your time. I'll probably be back at a later date."

Leaving the apothecary, I saw Phineas leaving the Legendary Leathers with a spring in his step who spotted me in return. "How goes the alchemical mixing, Yharnam?"

"A bunch of decent healing potions, two mediocre versions of common concoctions, and two mysteries." I said and lifted out the surprises. "Local master's opinion was to just drink them and see what happens. A divination caster was the reasonable option."

"Maybe Gibbs knows someone. Or maybe she can do it herself!" Phineas offered. 

"I can ask when we get back. Any plans for jormungar scales?" Dalaran was crowded, but people mostly kept a reasonable distance from me. I hoped it was out of common courtesy and not fear. 

Phineas practically hopped with glee with a grin covering his face. All he needed was some anime sparkles to complete the joyful image. "Jormungar scales are flexible, strong, and warm! Not strong enough for chest armor, but perfect for boots. Especially if I can get some light shinguards to strap on."

"Can't help you there, sorry. Maybe one of the veteran adventurer's will help?" 

A Hero's Welcome wasn't usually a crowded place during non-meal times. Sure people were coming in and out, but sitting down or loitering in groups was considered odd. The entire raid group of twenty-five adventurers, geared up and ready for combat. They were all surrounding two of the inn's tables pushed together, overlooking a map and debating tactics. They weren't loud enough to be disruptive, just interesting.

Gibbs and Allert were seated at another table with open books in hands. Gibbs had textbooks, something arcane in nature and probably too complex for me, and Allert had a white and gold prayer book of the Holy Light. Over all the scene was domestic when compared to the war planning a few meters away. 

"Welcome back you two. You missed an... interesting show earlier." Allert mentioned with a unsubtle nodded to the raid.

"The scales are officially ready for leatherworking and I'm going to make so many boots! Maybe some pants too." Phineas said and took a seat.

I grabbed a seat as well. "A few decent healing potions, one subpar potion of nightmares, and one subpar elixir of wisdom." I tapped the two potions upon their mention. "How goes the studying?"

"I'm going to re-enchant the bracelets with a better enchantment." said Gibbs without looking up from her book. "I need more material, but I have the recipe mastered this time." 

Thistle entered the inn with a leather bound journal in hand. She elegantly sat down, put her book on the table, and looked at all of us. "I will build an airship." 

"Like the Skyfire?" asked Allert with raised eyebrows. The Skyfire is the ship that was used- will be used to slay Deathwing. 

"Custom job."

Well, a goal is a goal. "Do you have an schematic? How will it stay aloft? What kind of fuel? Do you have a construction place in mind? What is the price range for materials? How long is construction time?"

"Parts, magic, magic... or alchemical, no, fifty-thousand to one-hundred-thousand gold," she paused and frowned. "Time varies. Month to years."

Phineas clapped his hands. "Wait, wait. Would this be the kind of airship we could live on?"

"Yes."

Gibbs idly tapped her muzzle. "I don't know any propulsion enchantments, but I know they are possible. I'll see what I can find."

"An airship would be magnificent, though I'm afraid I have nothing to offer." said Allert.

"Don't say it like that, Allert!" Phineas said. "We can both continue adventuring and collecting gold!"

"I'll look up alchemical fuel, we have awhile before we collect enough gold anyways. Outside of adventuring I could probably earn some coin through alchemy- Oh, before I forget; Gibbs, can you identify the properties of mystery potions? I made two and the local alchemist's recommendation of just drinking it didn't sound to good."

I put the two potions onto the table. "Divination isn't my strong suit, but I can try." she picked up the bubble tea. Gibbs stared for a moment, the rest of us silent. Made the debating of the raid a bit more obvious. "This will poison and heal someone at the same time." 

I laughed. "Not sure what I expected."

She picked up the pink foam and stared. She blinked a few times, shook her head, and attempted again. "Minor spellcasting enhancements in multiple areas and does not count as a battle or guardian elixir."

"No poisons, corrupting influences, or other dangers?" I asked.

Gibbs shook her head. "A good elixir, could be better, but a good elixir."

"Five gold for the elixir." I jumped out of my skin at the new voice and turned to see one of the raiders had come to our table. A worgen warlock based on appearances. "Deal?"

That was a good amount for how little effort the elixir took to make, but definitely undercut me on the material used. "Six gold and we have a deal."

They handed me six coins and took the elixir.

I put the coins on the table. "Well. That's six out of one-hundred-thousand. But I can make more of those and variants. Problem, that elixir had about a teaspoon of my blood in it and I don't know how to feel about that. Nauseous, I suppose."

"Blood is hardly the worst ingredient." Gibbs said. "Some of the professors used tonsil stones or kidney stones."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 16: 1343
> 
> I should probably stop putting 'up next's because the plan changes as I write...
> 
> ...
> 
> Up next: Schematics and Pricing Parts!


	17. 4.2 Planning and Further Testing

Thistle's design was one part galleon, one part Sydney Opera House, and one part bird. 

More specifically: a galleon hull, thin-shell structures for sails, and modified sails in the shape of feathers on the side for maneuverability. While defenses were being planned and beyond my understanding, the ship wasn't going to be a gunship. Transport and living were the main intentions; a house in the sky. A house that has workshops and a herb garden.

Thistle also wanted the vehicle to be mostly metal and glass. 

The cost specifics were difficult to pin down. Prices of raw materials changed at any given moment and planning for error was impossible. The only cost that was somewhat defined at the moment was the cost of hirelings to aid in assembly. 

The main sails and the side wings were going to made of a metal frame with glass tiles enchanted with levitation spellwork. On it's own the levitation enchantment would be weak; making something light lazily hover was easy enchantment. Done right and even with no fuel the airship wouldn't drop out of the sky.

The wires were to be lined with wires that would connect the glass tiles to a alchemical engine. The engine would empower the enchantment on the glass. The main sails would control speed and elevation while the wings would control direction. 

The whole idea was ridiculous and I loved it. We still needed gold, but I was pretty sure my elixirs would be damn useful in that regard. Battle and guardian elixirs were valuable, but you could only have one of each active at a time. A third type would be desired by any active adventurer, any active combative, and would have a demand.

Which meant I had a potentially profitable business and my personal goal was on the way to fruition. 

"We need a bank account," Allert said. "one just for storing the funds. Thistle, do you have one in your name?"

She shook her head no and looked to us. We all shook our heads. I laughed. "Well shoot, not one? What do we need to make one?"

Gibbs tapped on of her claws on the table. "A silver to open a single small account per person and a ten silver maintenance fee per year." she paused before her ears perked up and she grinned. "Oh wait! A guild costs ten silver to form with five members and comes with a free year of a guild bank account."

"I'll see what seeds or cuttings I can buy to get this business started. If that elixir was worth six gold then one with better newer herbs should be worth over ten." I know that in game you couldn't buy cataclysm plants or seeds at all, but there was a herbalist's greenhouse in the Magus Commerce Exchange and maybe they'd have something. Otherwise I'd have to brave one of the main city auction houses. 

"If we are splitting up again, I'm going to make delightful boots for everyone!" Phineas said.

"I," Gibbs started. "have another enchantment to study now. Though I need all the bracelets before you go so I can re-enchant them."

Allert nodded to Thistle. "Should we head to the bank together then?" he asked and she nodded in return.

Thus we split off again and I headed towards the greenhouse. Dorothy and Edward Egan cared for various plants and tutored those who had the coin or were a part of a Dalaran herbology class. 

They did sell herb seeds and such with the warning that magic heavy herbs were a nightmare to home grow. Possible, but so difficult that most found wandering the wild and finding the nodes easier. 

They didn't have cataclysm seeds, but they did have several withering sprouts. The masterful herbalists of Dalaran were research how to home grow them for the locals mage's use to limited success. I was pretty sure my blood could make them grow and if not, well I wouldn't be loosing much as they were asking for only twenty-five silver per dying sprout. 

I had over ten gold coins, but I did want to put forth five to the airship fund. Three gold bought me two sprouts per cataclysm herb and a silver for a cup size bag of peacebloom seeds. From a trade and general goods store down in The Eventide I bought a series of small shallow clay bowls for two coppers each. 

My spot beyond the wall was vacant as ever and I reset my lab with the addition of the ten clay bowls atop the rock instead of vials. In six of them I placed the uprooted cataclysm sprouts. In the others I placed incremental numbers of peacebloom seeds: one, two, four, and eight. 

I bled a teaspoon of blood into one before realizing bleeding myself dry for only possible profit wasn't that smart. Well, I was a monster with shadow priest abilities, I should have at least Shadow Mend. 

Which was easy enough, 'wrap the wound in shadow'. The small cut was immediately filled by swirling purple-blue tinted black. The wound then sew itself back together, taking the dark filling with it. 

I recut and bleed into two more bowls before recasting. Then curiosity got the better of me and I made a second cut under the first before the healing could be complete. 

Both wounds flared and dark wisps floated out of the cuts. Felt a bit like soaking a paper cut in lemon juice... or raw acid after a few seconds of waiting. When the pain ended the cuts were bleeding worse than before and I finished bleeding into the bowls before healing myself and taking a break. 

I may have had six thumbs, but I only had so much blood. There was no need to hurry, I had time to wait.

The fact that the glass of the vials were not affected by my blood was semi-comforting. If my blood had been absolutely corrupting than that spot back in Dragonblight would have been dangerous and I wasn't good enough at navigation to find it again. Gibbs confirmed the elixir wasn't poisonous, but who knew if that was a property of the plant or reaction to the addition of a talandra's rose.

The cataclysm sprouts were profit, hopefully, while the peaceblooms were cheap test subjects. 

All did grow, with interesting notes. All the peaceblooms bowls, regardless of how many seeds were in each bowl of blood, produced one thin unbranching vine; like like bird bones. All the cataclysm plants grew to proper size and all the vines sported tiny black beads like knots in a tree. 

Alright. I had already assumed the quality of the plant would effect the quality of the vine. None of the plants had seeds of any sort. I took a clipping from the stormvine and placed that in a clay bowl and added blood. 

The cataclysm bone vines were minced, thrown in vials, and thoroughly shaken, producing a dense smoke with odd swirls of black similar to a tornado on a planets surface. The six grown plants were minced, dropped into the individual vials, and gloriously shaken with one in each hand. 

Six vials of foamy liquids of differing colors with bubbles of black appearing and disappearing; one burning orange red, one dull yellowish orange, one greenish blue, one neon blue, one muddy green, and one hearty purple. So colorful and lovely!

The clipping did not grow at all and so it seemed my blood could only get one growth per plant; no infinite plant cycles for me. 

The bird bone vines went into my backpack to see if time matter or if they decayed at all. My alchemy set was repacked and I almost danced my way back to the inn with my six cataclysm potions to Gibbs, still at the table with even more books.

"Behold, science!" I said and put the vials before her. "Six mixtures of blood, cataclysm plants, and my personal happiness... I have a lot of fun making these things."

"I can tell!" applauded Gibbs. "Let's see... elixir of power... elixir of might... elixir of skill... elixir of will... elixir of growth... elixir of vitality... none of them are battle or guardian elixirs."

"Science!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 17: 1375
> 
> Up Next: Auction House and Scouting


	18. 4.3 What Adventurers Do

The next day Gibbs portalled us back to Ironforge. Each of us now had a guild bank vault key and were officially recognized by the banks as 'Sky High Business' as a temporary guild name. Our tabard design was thick white borders on sky blue with a geometric white sun in the center, though none of us could afford dropping ten gold on luxury clothing.

Allert went with me to the auction house, Thistle and Gibbs went to get information on the glass tile plan, and Phineas went to visit someone for information. 

Auctions required deposit fees in order to prevent spamming any house with junk material. For my six elixirs they requested one gold and eighty silver total, which wasn't bad considering I was started the bid for each elixir at eight gold each. Even if only one sold I would see a profit. I put a buyout price of twenty gold though that was unlikely. Certainly possible, many elixirs could go for thirty gold and some flasks could sell for hundred. However, all of those mixtures were known and recognized for their worth. 

My amateur elixirs' main selling point was they were essentially a third category next to battle and guardian elixirs. Which made things easier, but someday I will be making elixirs worth every coin. 

In the event anything sells, the auction house will take a five percent cut from the winning bid (or buyout in the case that someone does buyout) as the fee for hosting the auction. Allert aided me in making sure the winning bids would be funneled into the new guild account rather than my nonexistent personal one. Not a bad system over all. 

I chose the maximum hosting time, three days, and we headed to The Stonefire Tavern. There we found the rest of the crew sitting at a table with Phineas excitedly holding two map.

"I found some work for us!" he said and laid out the first map which showed Dun Morogh, the snowy land around Ironforge, and had a building in the mountain between Frostmane Front and Kharanos circled in red. "Years ago a group of dwarves carved out a small keep into the mountainside. Recently the shattering caved in some tunnels while opening others and in the chaos beasts took the keep! Ironforge can't split it's army now of all times, but Thundersteel is willing to pay any adventurer who can clear out the keep."

"Sounds good." Thistle said and got out her bracelets. 

I gave a thumbs and got out my bracelets as well before pausing. "We heading there now or we leaving the first thing tomorrow morning?"

"The sooner we lend our aid the sooner they can reclaim the keep." pointed out Allert. "We are uninjured and ready to fight."

Phineas laid out the second map over the first, presenting the floor plan for the keep itself. One large rectangle of seven rooms separated into two squares. The bottom half had three long rooms surround one large room on the right, left, and top sides with a hallway connecting the large room with the right and left long rooms. Each of the long rooms connected to the rooms of the top square with a large room bordered by long rooms to the right and bottom. The entrance was a stairway the entered into the bottom half's large room and had several open slits along the outer walls for ranged defenders to fire out of. Drawn on the map were three x's in red pointing to where known breaches where the beasts were getting through were located. 

Overall, a lot more information than the zombie keep; we knew the exact location, we know what happened, we know what kind of enemies to expect, and we were being hired by the previous owners with exact intentions. 

We packed up and rented riding goats to Kharanos; I rode in a sled as I was too tall to ride the goats. Not because of weight, just an awkward height that would have had my feet dragging across the floor. In fact, despite putting some mass on my skeletal figure, I was still too light to be humanly possible. Worked out for us though as it meant only my armor was weighing me down and that Phineas could ride and steer the goat pulling the sled so we only needed to rent four goats instead of five.

Kharanos was a small dwarven town and military outpost. It was also were I cheaply level one character from level forty to level one-hundred for the pre-Legion invasion events. 

There was a vague path up the mountain slope to the keep, the keep was used as an outpost for mountaineers before the cataclysm, but the riding goats were only rented to take us to Kharanos and the rest of our path was on foot.

The weather was the pleasant kind of cold compared to Dragonblight's frigid death, and Gibbs' enchantment worked much better in such an environment. We saw snowed in firing slits before the keep itself. Most of the building had been buried in an avalanche of snow. There were various animal prints in the snow. 

"What kind of fauna are local to this mountain range?" I asked.

"Bears." Phineas said.

"... are we just driving them off or are we going for the kill?" I said. We climbed atop the roof of the keep, but with the building half buried in snow we couldn't find the entrance door immediately. 

"I got this." said Gibbs as she pulled fire into her hands and began melting the of supposed entrance. I had assumed a trap door or something, but instead we found a roof access door that house a damaged stone staircase. The door itself was destroyed, likely by the Shattering or the later avalanche. 

I pulled my halberd out and tightened the arm straps of my shield. With just animals to deal with, it should be an easy job. Which is why I was nervous, because anything that claims to be a milk run was going to go FUBAR.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 18: 1015
> 
> Up Next: Oh shit not her again


	19. 4.4 Similar

The first room, surrounded on all sides by walls, had no light whatsoever. Oil lanterns on the wall were either broken or dead and the fading daylight from the stairway wasn't enough to see the room door we knew was there.

Gibbs twirled one of her paws in the air and a small mote of light appeared. No more powerful than a lantern, but enough for us to navigate. The wooden door opened to the bottom-most hall with a door on either end. We headed down our right, to the leftmost long room were one of the holes were. 

Except when I opened the door, expecting a face full of bear, the hole was already closed. A large crack in the floor, certainly large enough for a bear, had been filled with crumbling rocks. That could have possibly been explained by crumbling architecture or something; if it wasn't for the freshly slain bear corpses. 

Burns, not by flame or arcane, but by fel. "Warlocks, demons, or both." I muttered to the others. "We're not alone." We hadn't even started before we're off the rails. There was no question of if we were going to continue; bears were bad, but a demon presence so close to a main city was too dangerous to leave be. 

The second breach we checked in the long hall on the lower half had also been sealed with four similarly fresh bear corpses in the area.

The last known breach was in the large room of the upper square. Unlike the lower large room, the upper large room two possible entrances. 

We entered the long room under the large room and found nothing. We didn't have anyway to sneak in a closed door, so if our mysterious demon was there, they would see us coming either way. I kicked open the door.

"Hello again brother-"

"Oh come on, not you again." I interrupt and tap the bottom end of my halberd on the floor. We cautiously filed into the room. Limited light from lanterns, lit via green flame. Allert attempted to hide his grimace of shame while the undead lady was delighted. 

"Please, don't do this." Allert said with a pleading hand off his blade.

"After I came all this way and cleared the area for you? Brother, you sound ungrateful." she said. The room had been mostly cleared and once might have been barracks. A couple of bunk beds and storage crates scattered the area. She was seated upon a crate with that skeletal staff in hand. Everything was tinted by the fel fire in the lanterns. 

I decided I wasn't dealing with her bullshit. "Allert, you are not responsible in the slightest for her actions." I said and trained my halberd towards her. "You have a name? Didn't get it last time you attacked us for no reason and ran."

"Have you not told your teammates about me? Brother, I'm hurt-"

"No. No. Stop harassing Allert. Give me a name or I'm just going to call you 'Tattoos'."

Allert put a placating hand on one of my lower arms. "Yharnam, please. She... her name is Gloria. She was a fellow paladin."

"She sicked a demon on us." said Phineas as he strung an arrow. He didn't pull his bow taut, but the message was clear. 

"Please, please don't do something rash." Allert asked, though if he was talking to us or to her I couldn't tell. 

I glared at Gloria. "That depends on her doesn't it?"

"That it does," she grinned and slammed her staff on the ground. 

The roof exploded upward in a green column of flame; pretty sure we just failed at reclaiming the keep. Gloria was gone, again, and from the flame stood a towering figured formed. Feminine figure, lavender skin with spiked armor in some places but overall had a 'bikini battle armor' aesthetic. Not that armor would matter much as she was a burning fel eyed demon. Given their own resurrective immortality, demons were the closest to adventurers in terms of danger. Or perhaps it was the other way around as demons were much older than any adventurer could be.

The overly decorative crown and the sic arms signaled the demon to be a shivarra, a demonic race of Sargeras worshipers; the priests of demons. She had four sabers in her hands, leaving her middle hands free. 

Using my momentum, I slammed into her and unsettling her feet, forcing her to take a few steps backwards. Her towering height made it easy for her to step out of the ruined keep into the mountainside. We needed to get out of the keep, we gained nothing by being hemmed in by a demon who most likely knew AoE magics. 

I scaled the rubble easily, dodged a sword swipe, and went for another slam only to be dodged and slid into the snow behind her. The hook of my halberd found her ankle and brought her down on her knee for a mere second before she recovered. 

One of Phineas's arrows ricocheted off the shivarra's headpiece followed up by a fireball to the face courtesy of Gibbs. I couldn't see any of them until Thistle climbed her way out first. 

The shivarra's swords rained down upon me and I only barely dispersed into shadow in time to not be sliced into pieces. As a shadow, she couldn't touch me, but I couldn't touch her either. Without me to hold her attention, she turned towards the others. NonoNO-

Faster than I had ever been with my legs, maybe I could just be faster dispersed, I swarmed through the shivarra in front of Thistle. My body reformed in time to deflect the swipes of her two right swords-

-and to be skewered by the two left swords straight through my chest. My spine- my spine was pierced. My fingers went numb and my halberd dropped into the snow. 

"Yharnam!"

Slowly, agonizingly, my body was lifted by the swords. White blood fell, indistinct from the rest of the snow. The shivarra was smiling. "Any last words; child?"

Eyes and nose unfurled away and my teeth became too many for my mouth. The nerves in my arms reignited painfully as they filled with shadows and my claws dug into her arm. Black tendrils spread like snakes under her skin.

She threw me off her blades, my body slumping lamely into the snow. The shadows retreated from my arms and the life from my body.

My consciousness returned to a grey world with whirlpool sky, above me hovered a spirit healer. She cocked her head at me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 19: 1101
> 
> Up Next: We are the Dead
> 
> Notes: I got twelve days left to finish this and I just realized I made way too many plot threads, PANIC ENGAGE


	20. 4.5 From the Dead

I was completely unfolded in the... spirit world? shadowlands? I think there was a bunch of names for the place. My form laid out beside the greyed out version of Kharanos. A few tugs at my existence proved cultists were still trying to summon me, though much less than before.

"It is not yet your time," she said. "I shall aid your journey back to the realm of the living." 

"Wait! Wait, you're a spirit healer; Do you know how the cultist did this to me?" Not having eyes, nose, or ears again was odd after having them for... about a week. Seemed a lot longer. Why did I have hair in this form at all? 

"Just flesh and bone, it had no mind of it's own; A mindless manifestation of raw force. So easily replaced, they transplanted it's mind with the mind of another." she explained. "They misunderstood, they assumed that its acceptance of any order was ingrained to its existence. You're freewill was their undoing. Someday it may be more."

"...Nothing else?." I asked. "Well, thank you for the answers. And ominous words, I guess." At least I have conformation that the body definitely existed before me taking over. 

Warmth surrounded me like a comforting embrace. There was a pull, but it felt less like a tug of a sting and more like a guiding hand. The spirit healer nodded. "Your friends call to you."

Oh, yeah, paladins can revive people with Redemption and druids had Revive. I let the hand take me-

-and wheezed as I abruptly found myself back in my folded form. The sheer discomfort of my face reforming had me in fits before I pushed aside my sensory misery to attempt to see. "Everyone alive?" I asked as my eyes were not working with me; they were there, but the world was unclear.

My body was being carried bridal style by Allert and I tried to make myself as inconvenient as possible. Mostly I struggled for a moment before realizing I was making things worse and gave up. My head was resting on his shoulder and my eyesight finally returned.

We were descending the mountain and heading to Kharanos. The shivarra's corpse was decapitated, limbs torn off, riddled with arrows, and on fire.

Thistle was limping in night elf form, likely because she took over tanking as a bear and took too much damage. Her surface wounds had been healed and now she need rest. Phineas's bow was broken and ash covered his face. Gibbs had ash on her from the waist down and on her hands. The snow melted into small pools with every step. 

"Failed as a tank again, sorry guys." I mumbled. 

"Don't." Thistle ordered. She growled, perhaps a leftover from shape shifting. I tried to focus on her face, but my eyes kept closing. Maybe reviving had a few consequences. Dying was a bit more than a usual setback. My chest and stomach were killing me. 

I died.

Fuck.

There were more voices. Dwarves? Dwarves from Kharanos. They probably saw the fire and the demon. Then I was in a bed and someone with warm hands was checking my wounds. 

"Welcome back to the waking world, friend!" said Phineas. His his blue hair was so interesting; was that a natural gnome hair color or did he have regular dye? I wanted to ruffle that perfectly coifed hair. 

"Yharnam?" Gibbs asked. Her fur looked so lovely, I wanted to comb it.

"Everything's fuzzy." 

Thistle was in her cat form, climbed on the bed, and draped herself over my legs. She snorted at my reply and stretched a bit before settling. 

Allert was out of his gear and in casual clothes. The man was muscular, perhaps not as much as Thistle but just as impressive. He was such a noble looking guy with really nice hair. "I'm afraid I am inexperienced with revival. An experienced paladin would have had them recovered completely."

Phineas threw a coin at Allert's head and grinned when it bounced off. "But you got him back! You even got his face back somehow! That's what matters most."

"Why would my face matter most?"

"That's not what I meant, who cares." said Phineas and leaned back in his chair.

"Where...?" This didn't look like an inn.

"Kharanos' infirmary." answered Gibbs. She was also in a chair with a book in hand. Making deep bags must be useful when you want to carry a library with you. "You apparently have some very interesting anatomy." 

"I thought I didn't have any anatomy." Well, organs. I have a a skeleton and now I know I have a proper spine! Maybe since I have to form my face maybe I'd have to the same with organs.

Phineas nodded. "You don't and that's very interesting."

Thistle was very fuzzy, so much fur. A shiny blue furred jungle cat. "...Why do I want to pet everything?"

"The healer suggested a sedation potion to keep you calm when we mentioned this was your first... death." Allert said. "That may explain any confused thoughts, though you seem to be more coherent now. How do you feel?"

"Guilt. Whatever. Sorry Thistle." My many hands hands covered my face and took deep breaths. Peacebloom and silverleaf were the main aromas with hints of earthroot. She rumbled with displeasure and I didn't really know how to handle the situation. 

I wanted to keep trying tanking, but the only way to try was by being in dangerous situations. Other people had to be at risk in order for me to learn and I wasn't sure it was worth it even with the immortality. Guilt was hell of a frustrating emotion.

"...That keep is in ruins, man." I muttered. Good gods, one of the main rooms was pulverized by the demon. 

...No this isn't helping anyone. List positive things! "The keep can be reclaimed. Allert successfully revived a person. Phineas turned a demon into a porcupine. Gibbs managed to kill a flaming demon with fire. Thistle tore a demon's limbs off. We have enough supplies to keep moving when I'm up. We're alive."

And unspoken: they didn't leave me. Not when I died and not when my face unfurled. I knew freakier things existed in the Warcraft universe, but it was nice for a little conformation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 20: 1054
> 
> Up Next: Capitalism, Ho!
> 
> Also, 3k ahead of my goal is kind of cool


	21. Outside Eyes: Darkstone

Usually, only a trickle of adventurers came to be every year, but lately it seemed every other year brought a new nightmare. Darkstone wasn't an adventurer back when the first wave of awakenings happened, that was nine years ago and Darkstone was just another Dark Iron priestess. 

Darkstone was the first adventurer from the Dark Iron clan. Some saw it as a ill omen, others saw it as a possible hope for a better future; Moira Thaurissan saw it as an omen of change, neither good nor ill.

Change indeed, as she and her brethren could live in Ironforge unchallenged. Not that anyone would have tried; being an adventurer granted many benefits. Yet Darkstone had lived on the other side of a fight against adventurers and she would not be the monsters she saw those days ago. She would be better.

The second wave of mass adventurers awakening at once was seven years ago right before the Dark Portal opened. The third wave was two years later right before the Northrend campaign began. People noticed a pattern.

So when a fourth wave awakened less than a year ago, everyone went on edge for the next war and then the Aspect of Destruction began to tear the world apart a few weeks later. At least the pattern was consistent. 

The worgen were a surprise; human adventurers existed, yes, but no one had heard from Gilneas and apparently they hadn't had a single adventurer since they isolated themselves. A fourth of the fourth wave were just worgen; traumatized, furious, and homesick people who wanted to tear the world apart.

No one knew what made an adventurer though. There were theories abound, but no proof. Adventurers didn't die, could sense other adventurers, gained power at alarming rates, and were lucky bastards in general. 

Non-adventurers could be revived if a powerful healer got to them fast enough or if a god blessed them, but only adventurers could revive themselves perfectly fine. How were the powers that be supposed to keep immortals in line? What stops adventurers from killing whoever an adventurer wants to kill?

You give them something to do, a goal to achieve. Most of the older ones either kept with current campaigns or had a profession and obsessed over such. Some were constantly exploring, collecting, and doing insane actions just because there were no permanent consequences. 

You make it clear that killing a non-adventurer had long-term consequences that matters. The adventurer might outlive their enemy, if by attrition only, but survivors had memories. If worst came to worst, then other adventurers would hunt them for the rest of their days. 

But the most important action anyone could take when influencing an adventurer was to find them when they were new. Confused, once normal people, awakened to power and immortality at no cost. In the days before the waves and there were less adventurers around, some isolated adventurers found out there new status when they traumatically died and revived.

Many isolated adventurers became sociopaths. Nonspeaking, unstopping, uncaring monsters that would haunt the Dark Iron's memories for the rest of their lives. Darkstone herself did not know who started the help system they had now, but she knew it started with a unaffiliated group during the Northrend campaign. Their names might be lost, but their legacies would hopefully be immortal.

It started with starter kits. A backpack, a hearthstone, an infinite coin purse, and some food and water. Then some of the more powerful guilds opened their campsites for those who just didn't want to be alone. Then a handful of veterans began offering advice. Then veterans started getting together and putting together reasonable challenges for newcomers.

The monsters of Darkstone's nightmares slowly became the exception instead of the rule. For all the things she had done in her life, her hand in helping the newcomers was one she was most proud of. 

The monsters still existed, but they had been driven away, their monstrosity no longer tolerated. They couldn't be killed and they couldn't be stopped, but neither could Darkstone anymore and she had become one of the best.

Darkstone contemplated the artifact in front of her, it was one of the many found.

She sat in her guildhall office chair, located in the commons. Not the best guildhall in the city nor the best location, but no one stayed in the hall itself for longer than a month. 

Originally the issue was brought to her because she was the foremost known adventurer experienced with both void magic and the Twilight cultists. Summonings, mutations, sacrifices, the usual for cultists were all coming to her office and she would read them over whenever she had the time to come back to Ironforge. 

Some papers were about the corruption eating away at the land. Druids mostly handled that problem, but they were covering all grounds by contacting her. Thus they were placed into the 'important, but not immediately urgent' pile.

Others were requests to handle dangerous void empowered weapons and tools. Some of them needed to be destroyed and others needed to be locked in vaults. Some needed a bit of purification and would be usable by anyone. Some were decent weapons and were already in the hands of trusted shadow priests, others were taken by not so trustworthy individuals and were in need of being tracked down. The papers were split into various levels of importance. 

Any book that contained information and just information was sent her way. No one trusted ATM mailing technology to handle books of power and she would tear into anyone who attempting sending her something dangerous via such volatile means. 

The piles had been properly sorted. This time absolutely nothing required her to rush out of her office at the moment. Nothing that required an immediate reply.

Darkstone contemplated the bone idol in front of her, it was one of the dozens found.

They varied in poses, but the figure was the same and they all held a ritual bowl for blood. Six arms, no face, long hair, and long tail of tree roots thin like a snake. Most of the idols had been recovered from Twilight Highlands and every single idol had been found in the possession of cultists.

The figure was apparently of an Old God. Notes from various archeologist adventurers were sorted into a folder, all of them having reference to the figure. The weakest, an accident, so pathetic that it was easily imprisoned with a plane shift.

It was seen in Twilight Highlands. The skeletal upper half of its body could be seen from all over. The group of adventurers that encountered the aberration had sent a poorly written report her way.

Supposedly, no one has seen it since. Six arms, skinny, pale as bone, with long white hair. 

'I had a bad run in with cultists.'

They were still finding the idols. Supposedly they were the key to free the Old God from its prison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 21: 1161
> 
> Up Next: The actually Capitalism, Ho!
> 
> Or maybe note; might not be writing tomorrow and might have to catch up on a later day.


	22. 5.1 Take it Easy

I had a pseudo-heart, a pair of pseudo-lungs, and a yawning void for a stomach. None of the organs were necessary and were very interesting. Why have completely useless organs? Because I folded my body to be that way because that was what a knew. Not sure how to put that into words.

My spine and head were the only necessary parts in theory and thus I was pretty useless for the moment. Sure the healing rate was insane and all, but my arms would spasm occasionally and electric pain would shoot down my limbs. I could stumble forward, but delicate operations were a bit out of my hand.

We rented goats back to Ironforge with me in a sled again. There wasn't any rooms lefts in the Stonefire Tavern and we instead relocated to the more expensive inn closer to the Military Ward. You did get more luxuries with private baths, better meals, and more extravagant beds.

Phineas went off to talk to our employer, Gibbs checked on the mail, and the rest of us sat at a table within the inn. My arms randomly twitching was disturbing the other patrons and staff of the inn, but they were excusing us as adventurers. That and we were paying for a night so the inn didn't care as long as they got our money.

Phineas came back first with ten gold for everyone. "Thundersteel wasn't mad at all. The mountaineers had reported what they saw before us and he was thankful we drove the demon out before it could do more damage!" he explained.

Well if I could find another person dealing with cataclysm plants, I should be able to buy some with five gold and put the rest into the guild vault.

"Yharnam?" asked Gibbs as she entered the dining hall of the inn with several letters in hand. All were directed to 'Sky High Business'.

Gibbs handed me one with a grin.

\---  
From: Alliance Auction House  
Subject: Auction(s) Successful: Elixir(s)

Items Sold: Elixir of Growth  
Purchased By: GriefGardener(Buyout)  
Sale Price: 20 Gold  
Deposit : 30 Silver  
Auction House Cut: 1 Gold

Items Sold: Elixir of Might  
Purchased By: GriefGardener(Buyout)  
Sale Price: 20 Gold  
Deposit : 30 Silver  
Auction House Cut: 1 Gold

Items Sold: Elixir of Power  
Purchased By: GriefGardener(Buyout)  
Sale Price: 20 Gold  
Deposit : 30 Silver  
Auction House Cut: 1 Gold

Items Sold: Elixir of Skill  
Purchased By: GriefGardener(Buyout)  
Sale Price: 20 Gold  
Deposit : 30 Silver  
Auction House Cut: 1 Gold

Items Sold: Elixir of Vitality  
Purchased By: GriefGardener(Buyout)  
Sale Price: 20 Gold  
Deposit : 30 Silver  
Auction House Cut: 1 Gold

Items Sold: Elixir of Will  
Purchased By: GriefGardener(Buyout)  
Sale Price: 20 Gold  
Deposit : 30 Silver  
Auction House Cut: 1 Gold

Amount Received: 115 Gold 80 Silver  
\---

I whistled. "Not bad for a first haul, all of it was accounted for in our vault?" I asked and she nodded. "Though all were bought out by the same guy?"

At that she handed me another letter.

\---  
From: GriefGardener  
Subject: Apologies

Sky High Business,

We briefly crossed paths in Dalaran and one of my guild-mates bought an elixir of yours for a raid just before we set out. While we never spoke, I am impressed with your work and my mage noticed your current work on the auction house.

I investing in your work and it paid off during the next misadventure of our guild. Due to the obvious effects of your work, the other adventurers of various guilds that were working with out guild had asked and we shared the name of your guild.

I have only just recently learned of your inexperience and realized I may have thrown your guild into deep waters before any of you were ready.

I hope this letter finds its way too you before you are in over your heads.

GriefGardener, Guildmaster of Sympathy Symphony  
\---

I looked back to Gibbs with the pile of letters in hand. She shrugged. "Most of them are just impersonal requests, though a few are a bit demanding." she said.

"I think I want to stick with the auction house for now." I said and passed the auction notice to Thistle. "Do you think anyone would be selling seeds or sprouts on the auction house?"

"Entirely possible." Allert said. "People have sold anything they can through auctions in an attempt to make a few spare coins. What plants do you have in mind?"

"Azshara's Veil, cinderbloom, heartblossom, stromvine, twilight jasmine, and whiptail." Alphabetical order wasn't the best way to list things on the auction house; in game item level was far more important, but that was harder to quantify in reality.

When I moved to stand, Allert's and Thistle's hands landed on my shoulders to stop me. Standing up despite them would have been easy, though indignant bewilderment kept me seated.

"I'll will pay a visit to the auction house, you should stay here." said Allert as he stood.

"Wait, I-" I tried to argue and Thistle snorted. "At least take my coin to buy with!" I threw my coin purse at him, clearly aiming for his face. He caught it easily and left. "I can walk."

"You were hurt. Take it easy." said Thistle.

"Why are you guys overreacting like this?" I asked.

Phineas pressed his fingertips together, had a contemplative frown on his face, and then point both hands at me. "Are you one of those guys that get off on being in pain?"

"What? No! Who would even- no, no, no. No." Where did that even come from?! "My idea of a good time is a cozy couch and lots of reading material." Book, fan fiction, comics; whatever is available.

"You protect us from being in pain. You do that a lot and it's awesome!" he said.

"That's just what a tank does." I said.

"Sure, but that doesn't mean we enjoying seeing you get hurt for us. We not overreacting, we are reacting the way a anyone would react to their friend dying for them."

Well shit, when you put it like that I sound a bit like a stubborn idiot. "...Can I at least make elixirs?" I asked a bit obnoxiously.

"How physically straining could mixing stuff be?" asked Gibbs.

I pursed my lips and attempted to hide my smile, failing in every way. They all looked at me with concerned confusion. "My favorite way of mixing is vigorously shaking the contents in a vial." I said. "What? It's fun."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 23: 1084
> 
> Got a whole chapter to catch up with
> 
> Up Next: Alchemy and maybe that capitalism I keep putting off


	23. 5.2 Garden of Blood

Allert came back with several pouches of seeds and sprouts. Most of the sprouts were withered or damaged in some way, but I could use them as long as they were still alive. Overall for the ten gold spent I got a little over forty potential plants.

Science wasn't supposed to happen in an inn though and I didn't have a wall to hide behind. Ironforge was cramped due to the limited space and the stone workers made use of every stone they could. Outside wasn't a desired option with the snow, but the streets were always busy and I wanted some semblance of privacy. The others would see my shenanigans, but being the joke of Ironforge wasn't appealing. 

"You think the alchemy master rents out her teaching labs for non-teaching purposes?" I asked aloud with the pouches in my hands. Hopefully the odd spasm doesn't end up ruining a potential plant. "I don't think the owners would appreciate me working on their dining table."

"There's no harm in asking!" said Phineas and I was begrudgingly allowed to walk with everyone to the Alchemy labs of Tinker Town. We could make use of the alchemy lab for free as long as we cleaned up any mess we made and only used our own resources.

We settled around a plain table and I set out my set with the ten small shallow clay bowls in front of me. "And now for the worst part." I muttered. This time I only used a few drops in each bowl with a random assortment of sprouts. Seeds could be stored for a decent amount of time, but sprouts needed care that I didn't have the skill for at the moment. 

Everyone grimaced or glared when I gave myself the shallow cut on one of my left thumbs. Then Allert raised an eyebrow when I shadow mended the cut. "Yeah, I recently figured this out. It's a pretty strong heal, but if I take any injuries while before the mark fades completely then all wounds I have flare and get worse."

"That doesn't seem useful in a combat setting." he said. 

"It could; you'd just need something got counteract the ongoing damage like a Holy priest's renew." I shrugged. "We have to wait a few minutes, sorry."

Gibbs shrugged in return. "So, Phin, how did you find Thundersteel anyways?"

"He left a notice on one of the hero's boards and I went to speak with him. He was a friendly fellow for one of those strict military guys."

"Were there other requests for help?" Allert asked with a look towards the lab door. "Perhaps we should visit later."

"Most leave glorified shopping lists, though some people genuinely need help and whenever something BIG happens the kings leave a notice." said Phineas. "I don't think I've ever seen notices for non-adventurers." he hummed inquisitively.

"I believe most 'non-adventurers' are settled and can be gathered in a town square." said Allert.

"That and most commoners of the Alliance can't read." said Gibbs with a short lived sneer. 

"I take it Gilneas was different?" I asked and tapped my claws on the table. That many claws made for an interesting sound. Given Gilneas was weirdly Victorian, I found the idea of public education a bit strange. Wasn't that the age of massive economic stratification?

"Everyone learned how to read and speak Gilnean." Gibbs said and then said something in said language. It sounded like a bastard child between german, french, and english. Or 'common' I suppose. 

Allert nodded. "My education was handled by the clerics of Northshire along with my brothers and sisters. The world would be a grander place if such teachings could be more easily shared."

"The mailmen would be busier, that's for sure!" said Phineas. 

"...we have mailmen? I thought the mailboxes used that ATM technology thing." I asked a bit ashamed that I had to ask. Thistle shrugged and wavered her hand in a 'sort of' gesture. 

"Not every town has a mailbox that connects to the rest so we have mailmen who will brave the terrains to deliver your mail." Phineas said while posing with his hands on his hips and his chest puffed out before deflating humorously. "That or they pay adventurers to do it."

The plants burst into life, startling everyone into jolting in their seats. I first set another ten plants to bloom in my blood before separating the vines from the herbs. With the alchemy paring knife and the camping knife from the stolen crates I minced two plants to make the smoke... catalyst? The bone catalyst. That sounded cooler. 

I got a few laughs and giggles while shaking the catalyst in two free hands while mincing with four others. Yharnam, the one man alchemical processor! There were a few errant pain spikes forcing me to pause for moments, but they passed and I got back to work easily enough. 

First I made twenty elixirs for immediate sale which left me with about another twenty unused bone catalysts and about twenty units of various minced cataclysm herbs. 

1) Bone catalyst, stormvine, and azshara's veil made a gradient blue and green elixir with dark swirls form the catalyst.  
2) Bone catalyst, cinderbloom, and twilight jasmine made for a black and purple dark swirl elixir.  
3) Bone catalyst, cinderbloom and heartblossom made for a dark grey and orange gradient dark swirl elixir.  
4) Bone catalyst, whiptail, and cinderbloom was sandy yellow to brown.  
5) Bone catalyst, cinderbloom, azshara's veil, and stormvine went from red to green to blue. 

The uncreative influence for the combinations were the locations in which the ingredients could be found: Vashj'ir, Twilight Highlands, Deepholm, Uldum, and Mount Hyjal. The nine remaining processed plants went into regular one plant elixirs and the six extra bone catalysts went in my bag.

I pushed the five zone-based elixirs over to Gibbs who was still smiling. "If you would, please?"

"Yes, yes; you were like a babe with a rattle!" she laughed as she picked up the Twilight Highlands elixir. 

"This one would... doubles all shadow based damage for an hour." she said and looked to me. "That's wondrous. And I'm pretty sure impossible." 

"Nothing is impossible with science and enthusiasm." I said.

Phineas chuckled. "I believe it."

Gibbs grabbed the Deepholm elixir "Earth damage," then the Uldum elixir "air damage," the Vashj'ir "water," and then the Mount Hyjal mixture "nature. These are worth a fortune."

Step three, profit! Maybe that one-hundred thousand gold isn't too far off after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 24: 1089
> 
> Up Next: Time skip, maybe. Montage maybe.


	24. 5.3 Grace

"I'm serious, Yharnam, these elixirs are impossible. Elixirs that increase power are common, but outright doubling the damage forms is... people would pay hundreds if not thousands for one of these." Gibss said and put the vials together on the table. That and the ingredients make no sense whatsoever. The effects have more in relation to the locations I had in mind rather the actual herbs. 

"As in 'we are going to make lots of money' or 'science has gone too far'?" Phineas asked.

"As in we'd get a lot of attention from powerful people, exactly was GriefGardner warned us about." Gibbs said. "If we even slightly imply we could produce more, we will have kings looking for us."

"...but airship." muttered Thistle. She wasn't wrong, this was one hell of a way to make loads of gold. She contemplated the information in her head before she straightened herself. "We can handle attention." 

"If the elixir is 'impossible', people might now believe our claim to begin with." Allert said.

I clacked my nails upon the table in tandems. "We didn't give a description last time either, just a name. How do buyers tell?"

Gibbs pointed to herself. "Auction houses have mages or shamans on staff to examine magic items and to prevent quality scams. If the buyer is an adventurer then they might be able to examine the elixir themselves."

"Is anonymity an option?" I asked.

"Sort of?" said Phineas with a shrug. "There are the goblin auction houses where you can request to not have your name on board, but then the greedy goblin bastards will 'only' give your name out if paid enough."

Thistle frown. "More suspicion." If it was the regular elixirs, going to the goblin auction houses would come off as greedy. With elixirs that change the game it would come off a bit traitorous with the current tensions. 

"Maybe we could sell only to adventurers?" I asked. Adventurers already seem impossibly powerful, more wouldn't grab too much attention. "Though I don't know how to haggle and what's stopping us from being mugged? We aren't exactly in a position to negotiate."

Phineas adopting a thinking pose with his fingers curling over his chin. "I say we just do it. We're adventurers, we have nothing to hide!" 

"Do it." said Thistle.

Allert and Gibbs sighed but didn't object.

I shrugged and sighed as well. "Start the base elixirs at ten gold with a twenty gold buyout. Start the damage elixirs at... one-hundred gold maybe and don't have a buyout."

"Sounds good." said Allert as he and Thistle split the elixirs between them and headed for the auction house. We cleaned up what the alchemy lab and thanked the lead alchemist trainer on the way out.

Back at the expensive inn I ordered grilled fish and mulled over consequences.

A flat multiplier seemed unlikely. There wasn't anything like that in the game, but there wasn't a six armed aberration in game either. If the elixir really did just that then anyone who used those elements would pay, but there had to be a reasonable limit. Maybe it only worked for those up to a certain level... but levels didn't exists, so probably not. 

I forgot to ask, but Gibbs implied the elixirs had the same duration as the others; an hour. That... 

Right now the power was needed because Azeroth was fighting the apocalypse. After that there would be a war between sides, another war but against another timeline, and then a war against demons. I didn't mind the idea of selling the elixirs to fight Deathwing and his ilk or to fight demons, but like hell would I allow them to be used against Alliance or Horde.

Limiting supply despite the demand would make enemies; people were going to attempt to recreate the elixirs and what would they do if they couldn't?

We could handle it though, in time at least. Less than two weeks and I was already dangerous despite having no formal training; imitating Dark Souls shouldn't work at all, but it did because adventurers were bullshit. We would handle whatever the world threw at us as long as we kept trying. 

A person sat at my table across from me.

Thistle and Allert were still at the auction house, Phineas and Gibbs were out doing more errands on the promise I would sit tight, and I did not recognize the voice at all.

He was a human judging by the height and ears. Bleak blacks torn frayed robes wrapped with black chains. The hood of his robes covered his head witha veil obscuring his face. His gloved hands were places face down on the table.

"..Sir, do you need something?"

He said nothing. He barely moved, only his breathing made it clear he was alive at all. He didn't have the aura of an adventurer and he looked no different than a strangle dressed human. I finished my plate in silence and stood. He stood as well. 

Time to find the others. I didn't know where Gibbs or Phineas went, but the auction house were Allert and Thistle left to wasn't far away. I'd rather be in the public streets of Ironforge than alone with creepy dude anyways. Worse comes to worse, I had to remember I could shift to the muted realm. 

The stranger followed me down the street. 

The more I panicked about it on my way to the auction house the more I realized giving my stalking more information was a bad idea. If he didn't already know who my friends were then there was no reason to just hand that information to him.

I ducked behind a decorative pillar of one of the wall buildings. There wasn't a lot of space, but it was more than enough to hide me from sight and shift. 

The world became pleasantly muted and peaceful. Interestingly the lava in the chasm between the streets was not grey but still as motionless as anything else. 

A strangled breath alerted me that I wasn't alone. Behind me was the robed man; he was holding his hand to his throat and maintaining some sort of spell that visible wrapped around his head like a net.

"Who are you?" I asked. 

Between the pained gasps for air he spoke "I. want. to. make. a. deal."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 25: 1057


	25. 5.4 Glory

"Maybe you should have said something at the inn." I said a bit belligerently. Not that I believed him in the slightest.

"Witnesses." Not suspicious at all. Though this confirms that others can access the muted realm though air seems to be an issue. He wouldn't have an easy time fighting me without air though. 

"Not helping your case, buddy." I said. Look how much being in a position of superiority makes such an ass out of me. "You can always leave and leave me be if you need to breath."

Whatever he was casting solidified and he took a deep satisfied breath. "I apologies if I have offended you."

There went my sense of superiority. I shrugged. I wasn't armored or armed as I was supposed to be taking a break. The others were going to be so mad. "More annoyed and confused at this point. Slightly curious." What were the chances the man was a Twilight cultist? They were the only ones I knew of that could potentially enter the muted plane. 

He paused for a moment, stiff now that he wasn't struggling for air. "You have been blessed and you have only just scratched the surface of your gifts."

We have gone full generic cultist! "...I repeat 'Not helping your case, buddy'. I don't know who you think I am-" 

"A naive sheltered civilian, thrust into the void and reborn." he said.

"Yeah, I'm not going to trust the word of a blatant cultist."

"My words are nothing but honest-"

"Oh, I believe that; I just also know regardless of how honest you are you would be giving a censored or biased perspective." Even if the guy had my well being in mind he was also obviously a cultist who probably had the end of the world in mind. "You said you wanted to make a deal?"

"You do not know the power you possess and I can help you reach your full potential." 

"And what do you get from the deal?"

"A gift of your bone."

My blood does weird things to plants, I don't want to know what bone could do to a cultist. "...I'm going to have to decline."

"That's unfortunate, I was hoping you would cooperate." 

Of course. I pulled void to my hands as he turned his empty palms to the hidden sky. The walls bled black and familiar forms of writhing tentacles and eyes swarmed me. My void claws slipped through them as they constricted and crushed me. 

I was stronger and threw them off- until the robed man lit a smoke flare of that strange substance. The closest I been with only a meter or two between us and my mind began to struggle. The creatures' swarm over took me and my limbs were forcible contorted into unnatural angles under painful pressure. I screamed and the man stumbled, but the creatures became more frantic in their swarming. 

My limbs were trapped and I couldn't move; he stepped forward deployed smoke flare after flare until I was lost and knew nothing. I should have run straight to the others. 

My mind returned sluggishly, like being awoken after too little sleep. 

The grey sky hung above us and I was unfolded, my skin crawling. No not the skin, under the skin- the creatures pulsing as veins. Long black spears pierced my back and were attached to long chains made of shadows which were attached to pillars of void hanging from the mountain side. 

Snow was everywhere and I could see Dun Morogh through the peaks. We hadn't gone far, but it was freezing and my mind was slow. The veins ran up my arms and I was fairly certain they were stretching from the spears. 

My form was filling a valley between peaks and my root snake tail thing was spilling off a cliff. The mountain was crawling with the creatures and in front of me standing in a glowing ritual circle carved into the snow was the robed man. He hood was down revealing a gaunt face with the upper left covered in boney growths. 

Floating in front of him was another one of those idols the cultists in Twilight Highlands used to tie me to the material plane. We were still in the muted realm though and I had a terrible feeling that there was more 'control' in this ritual. 

Slamming a hand into the ritual site failed when a shadowy barrier appeared, gods damn it not again, in the shape of a pillar that reached into the grey sky. The force of my heat caused the world to shudder and snow broke down to create an avalanche that flowed down the mountain. None of it got anywhere close to the man. Trying to break free of the chained spears caused the creatures under my skin to bury themselves deeper into my possibly non-existent muscles. 

I screamed; and the cultist stumbled, but he didn't run or stop his casting. 

"What are you doing?" I asked. "Why?"

"You should have cooperated! You, a mere useless human, had become a god!" he said and the ritual circle began spreading outwards like blood through cracks in stone. "Your bones, the cores of your being, bless mortals with greater flesh. If you wil not use your gift, then I will!"

With that the spears dug deeper and deeper until they pierced my chest completely. They went between my ribs and said bones began to creak. They painfully pulled forward and I realized he was forcing my ribs to rip themselves out of my chest. 

Two hands to keep me steady, two hands to hold my ribs together despite the magics, and with the last I reached for one of the pillars only for a shadowy barrier to flare upon against my fingers. Throwing rocks or snow had the same result. 

Pulling void to my arms caused the impact to empower the barrier and the spears persisted in holding me in place despite dispersion. 

My ribs cracked and I sobbed from the pain, they had yet to pierce through my chest but the bloody coughing meant they pierced my lungs. Or perhaps that was the spears; I was sobbing in pain and too delirious with despair to tell. 

-and an arrow shattered upon the man's shadow barrier. 

"Yharnam!"

Ascending the snow, fighting through a swarm of tentacle creatures, was a raid of adventurers. I saw Darkstone and Record. I saw a familiar paladin from the Twilight Highlands. I saw a few familiar raiders from Dalaran. I saw Thistle, Phineas, Allert, and Gibbs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 26: 1097
> 
> For once I know exactly what is going to happen next
> 
> Up Next: Ready? Set! FIGHT!


	26. 5.5 Rip and Tear

I crushed one of tentacle entities that attempted to rush towards the group, but it was only one of many who rushed them and I was still holding my chest.

They all had some sort of arcane magic surrounding them, focusing on their chest- some sort of magic that allowed them to breath. Or maybe it was some sort of tether that held them to the muted realm. Either way, magic had to be casted and/or maintained; it couldn't last forever. 

"Kill them!" the man shouted and my ribs ached. I swept with one arm from before the raiders back to the ritual site, catching three and began crushing those that I could. 

"Leave them alone!" I shouted back and wheezed- my chest, my chest! Light washed over me and I collapsed as the creatures under my skin squirmed from the energy. Something around the spears on my back was lashing out-

"On the back!" shouted a man- he charged forward, leaping up my arms and ascending over my collapsed form. He grabbed a spear with both hands and pulled. With it came a mass of tentacles, pulling the creature out with the spear lashing out at the warrior. 

The other raiders were too far away to aid the warrior, so I grabbed him and a bit roughly dropped him on the ground. Then I grabbed the exposed monster and ripped it out which also rid some of the pressure off my ribs. They were inside, wrapped around the spears and handling my bones at the cultist's command. 

What could I do to help? Darkstone's Shadow Word: Pain would be better than mine, I didn't trust my control enough to send out random bolts of shadow magic, and I could only crush what got close enough to me.

Could I do Power Word: Shield? Holy magic wasn't part of this body and it seemed to be pained by the Light even when being healed. 

"Shield." Shadow Word: Shield! Instead of a white aura, a black aura surrounded only Phineas, Allert, Gibbs, and Thistle. So I had a mass shielding spell, but I could only cast it on four people?

On the other hand, it was my first attempt at magic shielding and I was casting under extreme duress. 

"No, I've come so close to exaltation and I will not have it taken away from me!" the cultist yelled before pausing his ritual, the glow of the ritual circle stuttering for a second, and ripping off a piece of the boney growth on his face. He tossed it out of his barrier and the piece splatter onto the ground before growing. Flesh and bone disjointedly put together forming a misshapen animal form. Something between a canine, feline, bovine, and had humanoid fingers of all things. 

The flesh monster was also fast as it immediately dodged my fist and ran out of my range before arcing towards the raiders. Said raiders were only just clearing up the tentacles beasts when the flesh monster was upon them. A death knight rushed out before the group and stood his ground as the monster attempted raked a claw across him. The death knight not only caught the claw with the hooks of his axe, he was able to dig his feet into the earth beneath the snow and hold the line. 

A majority of the raiders were focused on the flesh monster and the straggling tentacle beasts, but a group of five were breaking from the whole and scaling across one of the mountain peaks that surrounded me. It consisted of my friends and the paladin that freed me in the Twilight Highlands. 

The pillar attached to the removed spear was sputtering and broke easily under the paladin's hammer. The next ones' barrier withheld and the group's eyes followed the chain to the spear in my back. Four, there were four pillars total, I could focus a bit more with less pain. One down, three to go. 

Allert knelt with his sword in hand, praying, and glowed with light so bright it out shined the darkness of my Shield. Light touched me and the tentacle wrapped spears burned. I had enough presence of mind to know I had to make it easier to get to the spears and jolted out my hand and latched my claws onto the mountainside near them. 

The lady paladin got the idea and charged down my arm, imbued with great Light, and tore out the second spear. I pulled the lady paladin off, returned her to my friends, pulled out the freed tentacles, and ripped apart the tentacle beast with cathartic satisfaction. The right side of my chest was in pain, but the pressure on those ribs was gone. 

The remaining spears were likely in my left side closer to the pillars on the left peaks. With less pressure on my chest, I was able to devote five of my six arms to combat instead of holding my chest together. Allert bringing down holy Light upon the detached pillar and it broke. 

The cultist screeched; saying something, but too incoherent to understand. He ripped off another boney growth and tossed out the piece to grow another monster. The raiders were busy with the one and before they could divide and conquer it rushed towards the already split small group of my friends. 

Unfortunately for the flesh monster, that put it in range of my arms. Maybe if I had still been holding my chest it would have gotten through, but it could only dodge so many times before I caught the monster in hand and pinned it down. It refused to be pulverized and my was making a solid attempt at ripping my finger off in its oblong teeth. 

With it pinned I made a bridge between the two mountain peaks with my arms and back for the split group to pass. They were saying something as they jogged, Allert nearly slipping off my arm at one point and rebalanced by Phineas and Gibbs. 

Only for the flesh beast to melt under my hand. "What?" I ask as I look at the puddle of gore and bone. The puddle quivered and oozed beneath the snow and into the ground, leaving only a stain of red and discarded bone. 

Where did it go? The raiders were focused back on the single monster, but eyes were darting out and surveying the area. Most of the smaller group had made there way up my left arm to a ledge between the two pillars. The lady paladin remained on my back near one of the spears and Allert prayed. The moment the she could, the lady paladin pulled the third spear, and my group descended upon the unprotected pillar. 

One spear left, almost free! 

Snow burst upward as the missing flesh monster made itself known near my friends who were without a tank. Thistle shifted into a bear, but like hell I would leave them alone. Before it could pounce on them, one of my hands reached up, and the monster slammed into my palm.

Angrily, and perhaps a bit rashly, I swept the monster off the cliff and closer to the main raiders. 

Then the cultist started laughing. "It is time!" Fuck-

The remaining spear burned and the lower left of my rib cage shredded open under the empowered strength of the tentacle creature. The inside layer of my skin was braced by a net of wire-like bone and attached to my ribs which were layers of dense bone net. One piece of the ribs had been shattered into by the pressure. 

Before I could claw the thing out with my hands, the cultist threw smoke flares towards me from within the safety of his barrier. Between the pain and the unknown smoke my body slumped, painfully held aloft on the long spear by the tentacles attached. 

The creature let go of the spear and surged towards the cultist, the piece of my ribs in its limbs. 

Light from Allert closed the wound, but those ribs remained shattered. Without the tentacle beast holding the spear, the lady paladin easily removed the spear, and they were able to easily break the last pillar.

I folded myself and it hurt. Even in the muted world the pain was unbearable. Four black burning scars were settled on my chest and likely mirrored on my back. 

The raiders had dissembled and magically incinerated the first flesh monster and had turned the other into a sheep. 

The cultists laughed manically with the bone piece in his hands. He began chanting something, the piece turn black and translucent, and he shoved the piece into his chest. 

For a moment everyone was silent before screams of pain took over everything.

The second flesh monster abruptly turned back from polymorph and then screech in pain before its bones turned against itself. The bones of the limbs growing branches and spikes that pieced each other until it couldn't move anymore. Teeth elongating until the jaw was welded shut and the skull pierced by newly made tusks. A twitching mess of agony.

The cultist screamed and screamed. Limbs snapping, growing, and then repeating the process. Random patches of flesh overcome with and uneven bone exoskeleton and the boney patch on its face grew horns out and curled back over his skull. His chest was replaced entirely by a black version of my bone and housed the large rib piece in center. His organs were exposed under the black netting and were liquefying. 

The screaming stopped. He grinned exposing a mouth of full of too many teeth. Then he was gone, slipping out of reality like grain through a colander. 

"He's escaping!" yelled one of the raiders who tore off a pendant of sorts and disappeared as well. The others followed her lead and also took of pendants.

"Yharnam?" asked Phineas. He and the others were jogging up to me. 

"Shit, you guys okay?" I said and then immediately started coughing up blood. Maybe I shouldn't have lungs for awhile. Not sure how to go about unfolding them out of existence, but my face could be unfolded and all my organs could follow. 

Allert swept me into a hug and I was made aware of my lack of clothes. "Are you okay?"

"Everything is pain, but I'm alive and in control of my body so everything is good enough." 

Gibbs turned to the lady paladin. "How do we get them back into the real world?" 

"I can shift back? It's how I escaped the cultists before. Didn't know they could follow me." I said with more blood lurching up in the back of my throat. I need a toothbrush, toothpaste, and mouthwash. 

"We'll meet you there." said Allert and he let me go. 

I shifted into the material realm and collapsed from the pain. Naked in the snow, every movement agitated the fresh scars, and I could feel my shattered ribs. 

Both paladins healed me and I was happy for the burning Light for once. The Light was far less painful than the Void at this point. 

"Thank you." I said and hissed when Allert picked me up. Why did it always have to be him? His armor was freezing. "Where did the cultist go?" 

Gibbs was opening a portal and the lady paladin turned to me while we waited. "He will not get far. We have a lot to talk about in the mean time." 

"Yeah, ye- what did he do? What is the smoke, what was with all the monsters, what did he do to himself?" I rambled between wheezes. 

"In time, when we are not exposed to the elements." she said. In my case that was uncomfortably literal. The portal opened to Ironforge, even if the city entrance was only down the mountain, it would mean having to travel down the mountain on foot. 

We didn't go to an inn. We passed down the streets until the lady paladin lead us to an unmarked building. We passed the entry hall, a large common room, and a hallway to a small medical room. 

I was placed on one of the cots and everyone took seats on waiting chairs or other cots. 

Darkstone entered the room, her hair ruffled and her expression thunderous. She took a look at all of us, one long look at me, and took a deep sigh. "We have some things we need to talk about."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 27: 2077
> 
> Four days left to wrap what I can up
> 
> Up next: discussions and hunts


	27. 6.1 The Dungeon

"We don't know much about the Old Gods. They are living corruption and they are powerful sums it up pretty well. C'thun and Yogg-Saron are the ones we have names for, but we know there are more out there. Trapped in the earth in titan made prisons." said Darkstone as she paced in the medical room and then she sighed. "Recently the Twilight cultist dug up information about another one that was still alive."

She put a bone statuette onto the table; one similar to the one from Twilight Highlands. This time all six arms cradled a larger shallow bowl. "This Old God wasn't... sentient. It was dark momentum given form. It had no mind of it's own and would follow the directions of just about anyone. A hurricane that changed directions when pointed, really. These idols are supposed to summon and direct the Old God to do the summoner's bidding. We destroy most that we come across, including the one our target had."

Darkstone grabbed a chair and pulled up to my bed. "The Twilight cultist tried to summon the Old God from it's prison, but they summoned something else with it. A mind of a human."

"...There is no way to turn back is there?" I asked.

"They grabbed your mind, not your body. You weren't transformed, you were transplanted." she said. "But hey, good for us as that puts the power of an Old God out of the enemies hands and into ours."

I snorted. "Some power, I've been downed how many times now?" 

"You are also an adventurer who always start weak and get better. We don't have much of an understanding of Old Gods to begin with and I am an expert in these matters. Either way, your a fine fellow. You can handle it."

"'You can handle the powers of destruction'," I said a bit childishly. Old God is a bit of an upgrade from strong aberration like I thought. "Alright, not any different than what I was doing anyways. How about..." I realized I had no name for the cultist who stole my bone. I vaguely pointed upwards. "that cultist."

"We know where he is," she said. "we are having trouble getting to him."

"He can't be that strong." Phineas said.

"We don't think he is either. He may be more powerful than the average human, but all he's done is sidestep into becoming an aberration." said Darkstone. "No, the problem is his 'pets', there are too many of them and he runs before we can grab him." 

"Er. Not sure if this information is relevant, but I've seen the tentacle monsters before. Right after I escaped the cultist there were a bunch in the water. The one I met had really basic intelligence. Really basic." I said. "They weren't violent though, sort of bestial."

Darkstone hummed. "You fellows want in on the attack?"

A round of 'yes' from the others but I stalled. "Uh, I can apparently be completely removed from a fight via smoke."

"The substance is a transmutation of several plants into a waxy oil. We don't know all the specifics yet as the alchemist was murdered in Twilight Highlands soon after her discovery. I can get you a copy of her notes if you want." Darkstone explained and I nodded. "For now, keep your hearthstone on you and be learn to hearth while Shielding yourself."

We got geared up. Specifically, the others got cleaned up, someone fetched my things from the inn, and I finally had clothes again. 

"You literally have nothing to hide, friend." laughed Phineas after I gave an overly content sigh. 

"But clothes are comfortable. And I'm not exactly pleasant to look at." I said. Unless you were into corpses. Though undead were a 'race' on Azeroth and who knows if any of them did the dirty. Hopefully not, because the mental image alone was a nausea inducing. "You guys are pretty calm for all of this."

Gibbs blinked. "I have a druid curse despite being human."

"My sister in arms turned against our Order and became a warlock and now harasses us at every turn." Allert said.

We turned to Thistle and Phineas who shrugged. Gibbs laughed and dramatically place a hand on her chest. "How can you respectable folk be seen amongst us weird folks!"

"With humor." said Thistle.

"Because it's exciting!" said Phineas. 

Adventurers continue to accept strangeness. I guess we had a job to due anyways.

The cultist with no known name had made something off the north coast of Dun Morogh. The material was the same as his transformed chest; a dense black net of bone shaped into a colossal skull peaking out of the sea. Alliance scouts on gryphons were scouting the area. Since adventurers were already on the case, they were willing to let the immortal combatants take the first shot at the mysterious doom skull.

Swimming in the waters nearby were tentacles monsters and they seemed to pour out of the skull whenever the mass was challenged. 

"Why is it always faces and skulls?" I asked aloud as we stood on the shore, the skull a silhouette in the distance. 

Allert tapped a finger on his chin. "I think it's supposed to be intimidating." 

"I'm more curious than intimidated!" said Phineas. "How did he make that so fast? It's hasn't even been a day!"

Thistle pointed to the monsters in the water. "Endless minions."

I didn't recognize most of the raiders; the lady paladin, the draenei paladin veteran adventurer, Record, and Darkstone were the only ones I could immediately identify. Everyone had a necklace of fossilized root from an ancient plant. They were enchanted to allow people to shift between the material realm and the muted realm and would allow people to not need to breath while in said muted realm. The few shamans and warlocks were mass casting water breathing spells on everyone as a precaution. 

"Everyone ready?!" yelled a voice over the crowd. A draenei mage decked out in high end gear that with robes that were somehow on fire and not burning to ash. "We are dropping in hot!"

They formed a large portal and I could see the open jaws of the skull fortress and a open archway at the back of the 'throat'.

We began passing through in groups except when I passed through immediate discomfort befell me. My free hands reached out and grabbed a limb of my friends and shifted. Their necklaces flared to life and the enchantment took hold as disjointed skeletal hands snared the rest of the raiders and dragged them through the archway. 

That was the last view we saw before shifting and the waters turned grey and still. 

I shuddered. "I- ready? Are we ready to do this ourselves?" Are we ready to do it alone?

"We won't know until we try." said Gibbs.

Allert nodded. "We cannot let this nightmare be."

Phineas tapped his shoes. "We're as ready as we'll ever be."

Thistle shifted into her cat form. "Ready."

Alright. Shield on one arm, halberd in the other. Hearthstone in pocket in case of emergency. We can do this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 28: 1193
> 
> Up Next: The final dungeon


	28. 6.2 The Marrow

The floor looked like the surface of a sponge, like bone marrow except black and tough enough to carry all our weight. 

A glance up had me paused in place, drawing the others to follow my gaze. The skull was large, but no larger than a standard keep. Inside, I couldn't see the ceiling. Towering pillars reached stories above and continued into the darkness. Supported by the pillars were the marrow platforms like large misshapen scaffolding. Connecting the platforms were finger bones and sinew to make bridges. 

The archway we entered showed the grey ocean we knew on one side and a wall on the other. 

There were platforms above and platforms below with many opportunities to be ambushed. In the distance a mass of bones nestled between four pillars forming a black hive of marrow and sinew. Withered white roots threaded through the individual parts and moved just enough to bring the imagery of shredded fingers to mind. 

The marrow nest was the only architectural point of interest. On a potentially more fortunate note, I could also see a few raiders. They must have used their necklaces in order to break free from the mass of skeletal arms. Less fortunately there was no visible path of bridges to reach them. However, there was a path directly to the marrow nest. 

Three platforms left to the marrow nest.

I led the charge up the shallow incline to the first platform and struck my halberd upon the creature made of black veins that began to form up from the marrow. Not enough damage to kill, though certainly enough to grab attention. On the backswing the hook of my halberd got purchase on the half formed monster and pulled towards the further path away from my oncoming team.

The creature was mostly twisted veins into the shape of a large serpentine lizard with plates of bone forming a skull. My first strike had made an axe cut into the vessels, but the pieces were refusing. Sluggishly and there were visible stitching at the surface area. Limited regeneration. Gibbs incinerated the monster with ease. 

Two platforms left to the marrow nest.

Four of the blood lizards had formed on the next platform by the time we finished the one on the first. There was no way I could pin two of them, much less all of them, before they attacked my team. 

On one hand, attempting to mold the Void energy I have into something new was probably a poor idea. On the other hand, I had very little to loose by trying. Shadow priests could physically invoke fear and could mind control their opponents. Generally these abilities were to mitigate threat levels into manageable levels for the tank.

As a shadow priest tank... shadow warrior? Void paladin, perhaps? Ignoring the name, I should be able to forcefully invoke directed hatred. A shadow target upon myself and a psychically implanted suggestion upon my enemies. Shadow Word: Obsession. 

The four blood lizards lunged at me with open jaws, the ones that were attempting to go past me abruptly changing direction to do so. One met the blade of my halberd, two batted away with my shield, the last latching onto a left arm left exposed after the shield batting. 

The teeth of the skull didn't break through the metal of my gauntlets, but I couldn't free myself. The blood lizard attempted to drag me down and I stabled myself while bracing my boots on the ground. Pinned, but I had too many arms to be truly trapped. 

Thistle pounced on the back on on and clawed until she shredded the neck through and when the blood vessels connected to the skull started reforming she crushed the skull under her paws. The remaining mass liquefied and sank into the marrow platform. 

Phineas had pinned ones' tail to the ground, leaving the blood lizard scrambling to pull away and failing. A second arrow pinned a foot and another pinned the chest. With a weighted arrow he landed a shot on its skull that splintered upon impact. 

Gibbs just set one of fire. All that remained was ashen remains of bone. 

With four hands I lifted the last lizard and Allert ran through the lizard. He yanked his blade away from me, leaving a gaping wound, and forcing the blood lizard to let me go. Phineas finished the monster with another arrow to the skull. 

One platforms left to the marrow nest and we had trouble. Upon the last platform black blood and bone coalesced into a cross between a bat and a bird. The body and head were shaped like a vulture with no feathers, just more blood vessels wrapped around bones and leading to a skull. The lack of feathers would have made flight impossible so the bat wings made a little more sense. Why the wings also had bat claws was up in the air.

The batty vulture took off into the air just as I casted Shadow Word: Obsession. It swooped off through the bone pillars and circle strafed around the last platform. Gibbs opened with a fireball that caused the batty vulture to make an emergency landing- but not on our platform or any platform for that matter. No, it made use of its talons and claws to make a hold onto a nearby pillar. 

Faster than the blood lizards, the batty vulture was regenerating. Taking advantage of the still target, Phineas and Gibbs opened fire. Gibbs' fireball missed due to the distance and awkwardly high position. Phineas with better range training pierced the right wing. 

It screeched and proved that a single arrow wasn't going to stop it from flying. The batty vulture immediately dived for Phineas and I was only just barely able to dodge in the way with my shield ready. Alight, Shadow Word: Obsession either had a time limit or needed some sort of maintenance.

I recasted as it circle strafed again; its skull turning towards me, but not attacking as I had hoped. Attempt something else with Void power? I touched at the Void in my core and pulled; shadows surround the batty vulture and sent it careening past us into the distance. 

"Um." I said. "I, uh. I was trying to pull it towards me." The thing was still going.

"Can you pull it back?" asked Phineas. Still going. Not that fast though, though that could be the normal speed of the attempted spell or could be because of all the flailing. 

Gibbs tapped her chin. "No. No, or we might have to wait twice as long."

Phineas readied his bow to take a careful shot. "Looks like it's coming back now." Sure enough the monster was on its way back. Honestly that spell was worse than useless. It sent the target far away from me which not only put the situation out of my immediate control, it also meant whatever limit on Shadow Word: Obsession was bound to fail.

Phineas shot cracked the skull and the bird liquefied midair. 

The only remaining path was the marrow nest. The bridge led to a tall hole in the 'shell' and the limited view of the inside we had looked like it had the same space bending properties. 

So far so good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 29: 1214
> 
> Two days left to write three chapters, might have one be less than 1k as I met my 30k goal for the month.
> 
> Up Next: Boss time


	29. 6.3 The End

The muted version of the marrow hive was disquieting. Larger on the inside and pulsing. Three waterfalls of viscous black blood draining from unknown sources draining towards a pool with a withered white tree. The roots peaked in and out of the pulsing floor throughout the room. 

"The cultist is on the other side most likely." Allert said and pointed towards his necklace of petrified wood. 

I shifted over first. 

The bone cultist didn't have any human flesh left. All had been replaced by black bone with veins of black blood visible between the plates. The upper half of his face had been entirely replaced by a mass of uneven horns and all that was remained was a jaw of too many teeth. He gained at least a foot in height as the top of his head was high enough to reach my nose. 

At the elbows, he had another set arms. Both pairs of hands had been replaced by enlarged claws. "So you have continued to chase me?" he said as my team followed and spotted the monstrosity. His voice full of wheezing and hissing. He turned and pointed his left claws at me. "Even now you waste your gifts on pointless pursuits."

"What are you even doing?" I asked. I mean, I wanted to beat the hell out of the guy for torturing me, but that wasn't grounds for execution without trial. 

He spread out his strange arms in praise of his unseen gods. "This will be the root of the end of the Azeroth!" Well shoot, I think genocidal intentions and the potential power to pull it off probably was grounds for execution. 

"Yeah, no thanks. Azeroth is a pretty nice place and I like the people on it." Not to mention the baby Titan would die and that would be a pretty awful way to end the story of Warcraft. 'Death by evil tree' wasn't even an original attempt in the lore.

I dashed forward and opened with Shadow Word: Obsession before a sweep with my halberd. His exoskeleton rebuffed the attack sending the impact up my arms. Alright, that's a problem. Phineas solved the problem with an arrow to the unprotected points between plates. Good for him, but I wasn't fast nor precise enough to do the same with my halberd.

Gibbs and Allert could rely on their magic, but mine was still to misunderstood to trust. Speaking of magic, the cultist was just as vulnerable to fire as his minions. Unfortunately Gibbs also pulled the cultist's attention off me and extended his arms towards the mage. The vessels elongated while the plate stayed whole, giving the impression of chameleon tongues. 

The reach went just beside my right arm and I didn't move fast enough to parry with a shield base. I did grab one of the offending limbs and pull off course enough for him to miss his intended target. 

Everyone scattered around the room with only the cultist and I near the center with the murder tree. The other stayed close enough that a dash would get them to one another, but gave enough distance from the cultist that they could potentially dodge another throw of his arms. 

Said arms rescinded to normal and he lashed out with his other pair towards me. Perhaps the chameleon comparison wasn't quite right and a whip crossed with a hook shot could be more appropriate. My shield withheld, but the impact on my shoulders was worse that of my own attack. The pain drew a hiss from me and I recasted Shadow Word: Obsession to no effect. The spell was still on him since my first cast, but wasn't working quite right. 

At another fireball from Gibbs, he pulled his arm back for another launch and lunged at him with the pike of my halberd. The attacked failed to do any damage, but once again his own attack failed to hit his target. 

Well, since I don't need to breath, talking was a free action. "A raid of adventurers at your door and even if we all fail, we will just return with more." 

"The tides will swallow all of you whole and you shall suffer for all eternity!" he shouted, threw both his claws at me, and I blocked. Didn't his lung liquefy? Talking was a free action for him as well, then. 

Then Thistle popped out of fucking nowhere, swirling with nature energy, and attacked the doom tree. The bark initially withstood her claws, but the nature energy sunk in and her claws followed. 

The cultist moved to pry her off, but we all took advantage of his distraction. I hooked his shoulder with my halberd and Phineas rapid fired several arrows into his joints. Allert brought on the wrath of the Light and Gibbs made a column of fire.

"Nothing will remain!" he said before grabbing me by the throat and tossing me into the wall. Specifically, the wall furthest away from Gibbs and her epic fire. I couldn't be fast enough on foot to reach her before him. Before, with the shiverra, I became shadows and was faster!

Into shadows, my form remain humanoid for a second before becoming little more than a tide of Void. The cultist lashed all four arms towards Gibbs and instead met my parry. The returned force stumbled him backwards; he lost his balanced and stumbled to his knees.

"Prepare to die." I said as Gibbs turned up the heat. 

"THE OLD GODS WILL CONSUME ALL OF AZEROTH!"

Thistle finally tore off a piece of bark and got to the blackened innards. "Allert!" she called. 

Allert dashed over, cringed while walking into the shallow pool of black blood, and focused his Light into the tree through the hole. The tree began to light up from within and the cultist made one last ditch attempt at stopping the destruction of his evil tree. Phineas' pinning shot caught the cultist's arm to the floor. It stretched as he attempted to drag himself closer before Phineas shot an arrow into the small exposed area on the back of his skull.

I tucked away my halberd into my backpack and threaded my fingers through my hair. Allert continued to focus onto the tree until it began to explode with light from newly forming cracks. Similar cracks began forming on the walls of the marrow nest. Gibbs gestured towards the door. "We have to go!"

"You guys warn the other raiders on this side, I'll warn the ones in the muted realm!" I said and shifted over. I dashed through the platforms yelling for anyone to hearth out, the fortress was going down. 

I could only see three raiders and they did teleport out, but there could have been more scattered in the collapsing infinite darkness. 

Out into the mouth of the skull I heard a high pitch whine continuing to get higher. Standing on the surface of the water in front of the skull's mouth were several waiting adventurers and that was all I saw before the skull exploded. 

My back was torn and I was thrown into the salty sea water. My first words upon surfacing were several profanity much to someones' laughter. I would probably be more upset about that if they weren't pulling me out of said water.

"Allert, Gibbs, Phineas, and Thistle?!" I asked. "You guys better be perfectly fine; we almost had a perfect run!" So close.

"We're fine, how about you?" asked Allert.

"I'm fine, the salt is just painful. Whatever, the evil tree dead?"

Darkstone casted Levitate on me and I was finally out of the cursed water. "I don't know about a tree, but there is nothing left of the skull keep."

Sure enough, the keep was disintegrating into the water. The tentacle monsters weren't doing anything though, despite how violent they were before. "Go back to the muted realm!" I ordered and they did. "...I didn't think that would work."

"Eh, all's well that ends well." said another raider.

Record furrowed his brows. "...Deathwing is still out there."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 30: 1346
> 
> Two chapters to finish by tomorrow, wish me luck


	30. 6.4 Epilogue

There was no reward for our work; there wasn't exactly enough time for the local government to realize there was a problem before adventurers pounced on it.

The only reason the raiders even knew there was a problem was my team started looking for me and witnesses saw me leaving the inn with a stalker on my tail. They went to Darkstone who got her guild involved and a bit of arcane tracking reveal a mass of Void energy amassing above Ironforge. 

The necklaces were apparently the same material as my root tail thing of my unfolded form though ancient and fossilized that were found under the Twilight Highlands. Alone they allowed for ripping small holes between the material realm and the muted realm. Some ingenious adventurer enchanters put on a limited breathing enchantment on the pieces. Something like a air tank on scuba gear.

The smoke flare notes were confused chicken scratched rambles that were probably written by someone barely awake. From what I understand the person who was studying the fossilized wood samples found out about the Old God that wasn't quite dead and realized the cultists were trying to bring it back. She hired a group of adventurers to protect her while she worked and then later hired the same group to handle me when they cultist summoned me a second time. She was murdered when the group was outfighting me as a cultist took advantage of her unguarded state.

Said cultist took the finished recipes and finalized reports of her research and began tracking me. It was likely the notes also inspired his control of the tentacle monsters... probably. No one has been able to figure out what he learned from those notes or what happened to those notes.

The rambles were all that remained and were no coherent enough for me to figure out how she made the oil that messed so much with me or how to counteract the substance. If an archeologist alchemist was able to figure it out the first time then someone could figure it out a second time. That person wasn't me as I didn't have any skill in archeology.

Darkstone promised to look into it, but we both knew more important dark artifacts recovered from the Twilight Highlands took priority. I could be patient and it was unlikely a potential enemy would put in the time to figure it out before Darkstone would unless I made an even bigger name for myself.

I dove further into my alchemy work as with the ongoing fight with Deathwing and Twilight forces my bone elixirs were in high demand. Everyone on my team dove into their professions between running dungeons, really. Running dungeons kept us fit, but wasn't really pushing us. We were not anywhere near ready to aid the veterans with the anti-apocalypse efforts and there wasn't much in the ways antagonist forces for us to fight against. 

A majority of our income went towards Thistle's airship plan. The rest of my coin went towards buying custom clothing and armor. Lots of ponchos as they were cheaper than six arm coats and easily replaceable. 

I also got Phineas to make me a replica hunter set from Bloodborne sans coat. Instead I got a matching black poncho. Wonderfully tonally dissonant and my favorite attire despite the complete lack of armor. Great for looking strange in public while being surprisingly comfortable. 

The bone ash set might have been more thematically appropriate, but who knew how to make something like that. Describing the hunter set was easy as the style did exist on Azeroth through the Gilneans. Outside of the poncho of course. 

Gloria the warlock was still at large and virtually untouchable. She was likely hanging out in the Undercity which put her out of our reach and out of the reach of Allert's Order. 

There wasn't any progress on retaking Gilneas. Apparently a dragon moved in and was murdered at some point, but otherwise no news. Gibbs wasn't powerful enough to take back the city herself and practiced pyromancy to someday be powerful enough. 

Thistle continued planning out her airship. When not adventuring she was working out the math and working out estimates for costs.

Phineas was the well adjusted one of us who just wanted to hunt good game; an easy goal that we engaged on a regular basis. 

There wasn't any indication I would find a way home and such wasn't really an option unless I was able to return to my human body anyways. If I had to be an aberration then I'd rather be an aberration on Azeroth. 

So little time had passed since I awoke in this monstrous body and so much had happened in that short time. If I wasn't awakened as an adventurer as well then I probably would have died early on. 

Instead I somehow survived and made some friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 31: 816
> 
> The short chapter!


	31. x.1 The Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the second chapter posted today  
> Please go back a chap if you missed it!

I awoke with the sun peaking through the slim window of my room. I did adore my room; a bed that fit, a desk adjusted to my height, an armoire for my clothing, and shelf of baskets for various knickknacks. The furniture had been affixed to the walls and floor just in case of an attack. 

I stretched before getting dressed and heading out for breakfast. Phineas and Thistle were awake and it was my shift next. Breakfast was a croissant served with scrambled eggs, two sausages, and tea. The others were drinking coffee, but I still couldn't stand the taste unless it was heavily masked with spices and/or mixed with other liquids. 

"Just in time, Yharnam." Phineas said as I finished up my meal. He pressed a bag of dried fruits into my hand and took his seat at the table as I got up. 

"Any problems?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Nah, runs like a dream!"

The weather was wonderful. Blue skies with a few clouds, pleasantly cool, and wide blue ocean waters. 

A perfect day for flying. 

Steering Sky High Business' 'the Glass Atlas' was easier than driving a car. Due to the magitech nature of the airship, the vehicle could drive itself in straight lines without issue. As long as we were high enough in the air we could get from point A to point B without further input. Still, we always had someone at the helm just in case. 

The helm rested on the forecastle with a very nice chair. The desk before said chair consisted mostly of dials and monitors with only a few actual inputs. I didn't know most of the inputs and wasn't all to interested as Thistle was the true captain of the ship, we just took shifts during easy sailing to give her a break.

Connected perpendicularly to the control desk was a work desk with filing cabinet. The cabinet contained non-private notes written by whoever, maps, clean papers, and writing materials. The desk also had a cup holder that was in place solely for coffee during storms.

The glass shells that shielded the deck was at once the anchor for the advanced levitation enchantment and cover against the rain and snow. Unfortunately it did little for whenever the airship rocked under the siege by storm or assault.

Not that we have had a single air battle yet and hopefully that would never happen. The Glass Atlas did have a few cannons and harpoons, but for the most part was a mobile home and merchant ship. 

We occasionally moved low priority products between cities, but most of our income came from selling crafts and transporting adventurers to cities that were off leylines. We had the speed of fast mounts while retaining the luxuries of not having to straddle a beast for several hours. It wasn't a lot of coin, but it was consistent coin. 

My bone elixirs were our biggest income, but was too inconsistent to rely on. A single sale could bring in one-thousand gold, but adventurers who could afford such a price only bought one when big raids happened. Since Deathwing's death, most veteran adventurers didn't need the elixirs often anymore. I could sell for less, but I could get away with the price I used and I didn't want to just hand out weapons of potential mass destruction.

My alchemy had improved to the point that the novelty of my elixirs wasn't the only thing I cold sell. I was far from the best, but I was good enough for modern potions and they brought in decent coin. Hell, the fuel for the Glass Atlas was my own work.

Gibbs sold enchanting scrolls and bags, Phineas sold capes and boots, and Thistle sold engineered tools. Allert didn't sell products, but it wasn't like Sky High Business was just an merchants guild. We were an adventuring guild first and foremost and he was a valuable member of the team.

"Good morning." said Allert as he ascended the stairs to the forecastle. He had a mug of coffee one hand, a few letters in the other, and was casually dressed. If we had guests we would all be at least armored, just in case, but there was no reason to be armored when it was just us. 

The letters were from one of Thistle's MOLL-E, an engineer's mobile mailbox, and the only way we got mail when on the Glass Atlas. Otherwise we would have to dock at a major city every time we wanted to check our morning mail.

"Morning, Allert. You eat already?" I asked and he nodded. "Well, we should be reaching Gadgetzan in a few hours."

"And then another ten hours til Darnassus." he said with a sigh. 

"We're almost done, after this we're going to find a few dungeons to run through." I said. "Never a shortage of those."

"No, I suppose not." he said.

"You okay?"

"The others believe another campaign is coming as another wave of adventurers awakening have started." he said while lightly waving the letters in his hands. "A small wave; however the same 'pre-wave' had happened before the Gilean adventurers made themselves know."

Was it time for Mists of Pandaria already? Deathwing's death seemed like yesterday and we didn't even participate in that fight. 

"Don't worry. We'll be ready." I said.

The next campaign was coming and we would likely get involved. We owned one of the few airships capable of mass transport and no one was going to have portals to Pandaria yet. 

The adventurers that wouldn't be tasked by Garrosh of King Wrynn would need that transport. Of course that would be throwing in our lot into the brewing war that we avoided for the most part. 

We all owed the veteran adventurers, though. If they asked, we would comply. "Do you think we should invite people to the guild?" I asked.

"I think we would be better for it and we should carry on the tradition we benefited from."

Passing on the torch while we still carried our own torches? Sure. 

Here's to the next campaign!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jan 31: 1022
> 
> End Report: things I have learned
> 
> 1) Too many plot threads not enough time! 30k words seemed a lot longer when I started and I had a ton of plots in head that had to be rushed or cut.  
> I couldn't handle it and should prolly tone it down.
> 
> 2) Editing! Due to time constraints of this self imposed challenge, editing wasn't really an option.  
> Holy shit all the errors!
> 
> 3) Relax about character writing. Dialogue came easier when I just through my hands in the air and let it happen
> 
> 4) I wanted to write more about the airship :( I started this whole story with the idea of 'merchant airship plus adventuring crew' but lost focus.  
> I lost focus a lot
> 
> 5) 1k a day isnt fun and I dont want to do it for awhile
> 
> 6) TONAL DISSONANCE. Im so sorry, readers, so much tonal dissonance.
> 
> Lets try to finish In Some Awe and then I have no idea. I have so many unfinished works.


End file.
